I’m about to tell you something that will change your beliefs forever. What happened during the weekend I went to meet my girlfriend’s parents will forever be burned into my memory and I don’t know if I can ever trust anyone ever again.
Now, I will just say this to get it out there, I’m black and yes, my girlfriend just so happens to be white. Before you make any assumptions, just hear my story. It all started with our trip from college to see her parents along with her sister and her sister’s boyfriend.
“Get ready for the shit show,” my girlfriend’s sister Stella said as she sits in the back with her boyfriend Callen while I drive and Kiara, my girlfriend, road shotgun. “Ramon, I apologize on behalf of our nutty family ahead of time.”
Kiara rolled her eyes. “Don’t listen to her, our parents aren’t that bad. They’re not racist, they just sometimes don’t understand that what they say is sometimes highly offensive.”
Stella laughed. “That’s putting it lightly. I can’t wait to see dad’s face when he sees the two of you together.”
“Stop,” Kiara said. “Don’t listen to her. We’ll be fine.”
“Your parents couldn’t be any worse than mine,” Callen said. “My parents are real assholes.”
“Oh, way worse. Our mother is a neat freak. You’ll want to take off your shoes as soon as you get in or you’ll get an earful. She spends most of her time cleaning the house and if you get one speck of dirt on her carpet, she’ll let you know about it,” Stella said with that sadistic smile. “She’ll also interrogate you for your entire life. She won’t judge you for it, she’ll just pester you with questions until she knows every small detail of your existence. My dad also won’t ever stop talking. Only instead of asking questions, he’ll lecture you nonstop because he’s the expert on everything. He also loves to tell inappropriate jokes.”
“Stella! Come on. Seriously? Mom and dad aren’t that bad,” Kiara said as she rolled her eyes. She turns to me and places her hand on my forearm. “Don’t listen to her babe. She’s just trying to scare you. She loves to fuck with people’s heads.”
It’s not long before we pull into their driveway. It’s a ways out into the country. Their house is your typical style two-story farmhouse. As I park the car, we get out and grab the luggage. The house looks like no one is home, but after a second glance, I see one of the shades cracked open and nearly trip as I see someone creepily peering out. As soon as the person sees me they shut the blinds.
The door opens up and a man with white hair that’s starting to bald and a white beard steps out. His face is as serious as a 911 operator.
“Dad!” Kiara shouted with glee as she skipped up and went to hug him. He pulled back and put his hands out.
“Don’t touch me!” he shouted out and Kiara stopped in her tracks and looked off-put. He looked at her for a second before he fixed his glasses. “I’m sorry. You are my daughter. Right. I’m sick. I don’t want to get you sick.”
With that, he forced out a cough. Kiara tossed us a questioning look before turning back to her dad. He eyed the rest of us for a long minute. “Come in.”
We all trade looks before hauling the luggage inside. The place is filthy. Cobwebs have made it home. A thick layer of dust is on everything. Stella and Kiara eye each other.
“Dad, we’re going to put our things away and we’ll come back down after we freshen up,” Stella said.
“Right… Well. Don’t take too long. You should all get a good night’s sleep soon,” he said. I look at my watch and it’s only 1 in the afternoon.
“Uh… okay,” Kiara said. We quickly followed her up to her room.
As soon as the door shut, Stella spoke up. “What the fuck is going on? The place is a mess? Did you think Dad was acting funny?”
“Well, he did say he was sick,” she said.
“Where’s mom?” Stella asks.
“I don’t know, but it’s not like her to leave the place so messy,” Kiara said.
“And what the fuck was up with dad? He’s so jumpy. And he’s at a record low of long-winded lectures,” Stella said as she tucked a loose string of brown hair behind her ear while she sat down on the bed. Her eyes continued to flick over to Kiara and her boyfriend as she bit down on her lip.
“Maybe something happened. Things change people,” Kiara said.
“You think it’s that simple?” Stella asks.
“Yeah. I mean, come on, it’s mom and dad,” Kaira replied.
“I don’t know. I read this…”
“Stella, I know what you’re getting at. This is the real world, not a science fiction novel,” Kiara said.
“I know. I know. I’m just saying…”
“Babe, you gonna show me your room?” Callen asked, winking at her.
“Right. Sure,” she said. As they went over to her room, he spanked her and gave her ass a good squeeze.
We spent most of the afternoon upstairs. Eventually, we all headed downstairs for dinner. As Stella, Callen, Kiara, and I gathered around the table, we noticed their mother lingering in the hallway by the stairs. She didn’t say anything, just stared at us for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, their dad came out behind her and she followed him.
“So, what’s for dinner?” Stella asked.
“Dinner?” their dad said. He looked puzzled by the question. “Right. Dinner. I uh…”
“Should we just order pizza?” Kiara asked.
“No, I’ll get something,” he said as he entered the kitchen and started going through the cupboards.
“After dinner, Stella and I thought it’d be fun to head out to the pole barn and bring out the lawn chairs for a campfire,” Kiara said.
“No!” her mother snapped at us. “No fires!”
Stella and Kiara looked at each and their expressions said it all. There was fear mixed with confusion in their eyes.
“And don’t go into the pole barn,” her dad said. “It’s best you stay here in the house for now.”
“You don’t mind if I smoke, do you? I have a medical card,” Callen asked. Stella threw him a sharp look.
“No smoke! No fire!” their mother said. I looked over at Kiara trying to figure out what was going on. I haven’t even met them before now and I can sense their behavior isn’t normal.
“Okay, I was just asking, no need to get upset,” he said as he threw Stella a sharp glance.
My phone went off with the loud annoying sound I picked for an alarm to make sure I take my meds when both Mr. and Mrs. Bradley shrieked out with hissing and screaming sounds. “Shut it off! Shut it off!”
I quickly turned off my alarm as my heart raced ever faster. The look on their faces was horrifying.
“Just stay inside the house,” her father said. He finally pulled something out from the fridge and dished it onto separate plates before he brought them over. What was on the plates was absolutely repulsive. “We’re going have to go check something out in the pole barn. We’ll be right back. Eat up.”
The dark black blob on our plates didn’t look edible. It smelled rancid. As soon as they left, Stella went off. “What the fuck is going on? What is this shit? They’re acting so fucking weird.”
“Yeah, I’m not eating that,” Callem said. “It looks disgusting.”
“I don’t think any of us should,” Stella said.
“Babe, I need to smoke. I’m just going to sneak out and hit the vape real fast,” he said.
“Fine whatever,” she said.
He sneaked out of the house. As Stella and Kiara talk about how odd their parents are, I looked out the window to find something glowing from the pole barn. What the fuck is going on in there? Callen seemed to have seen it too because I saw him walking over towards it. He was peering in through the window on the door when the door suddenly opened and he was pulled inside. What the fuck?
I’m not sure whether I wanted to see what was inside or get in my car and drive as far away from here as possible. Something not right is going on here.
“Babe, what do you think we should do?” Kiara asked.
“I think we should leave. I just watched Callen get pulled into the pole barn after he was looking inside.”
“God, that fucking idiot. Why did he have to go poking around?” Stella said with a heavy sigh.
“Why do you think mom and dad don’t want us going in there?” Kiara asked.
“I don’t know. But what was up with them when your alarm went off?” she asked me. I only shrugged.
“We should get rid of this crap so it looks like we ate it,” Kiara said.
“Good idea,” Stella said as we all picked up the plates and scooped the blobs into the trash. A minute later Callen walked inside. I was more than a little surprised to see him. Although, something was really off about him. He just came in and sat down at the table. Didn’t say a word or even acknowledge us. “Babe? Hey. Everything okay? What did you see in the pole barn?”
“Pole barn?” He asked, looking at us. There was something different about his eyes. I can’t quite place it, but they’re not the same. “Don’t go in the pole barn!”
All three of us jumped back and traded looks. Then Stella piped up. “What the hell did you smoke?”
He turned his head in a way that gave me the chills. “No smoking! No fire!”
“We’re going upstairs for a bit,” Kiara said, tugging mine and Stella’s arm. We quickly followed her upstairs.
“What the fuck is going on!” Stella said, freaking out.
“It’s whatever is in that pole barn. It changed him,” I said.
“We need to figure out what’s in there,” Kiara said.
“We should call, like, the cops or something,” Stella said.
“And tell them what exactly? That your parents have gone mad and did something to your boyfriend?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“We need to figure something out,” Kiara said.
“I say we get in my car and get the fuck out of here,” I said.
“No! Not without figuring out what’s going on with my parents,” she said. I swallowed down the lump in my throat. I wasn’t going to leave without her and if I was in her place, I’d want to know what the fuck was going on too.
“Fine. If you two can distract them, I’ll figure out what’s in the pole barn,” I said.
“Really?” she asked.
“Babe, I’m not leaving you, that’s for sure,” I said. She buried her head into my chest.
“You shouldn’t go out there without some way to defend yourself,” Kiara said.
“Do you have a lighter and some hair spray?” I asked.
“Yeah, why?” she asked.
“Well, didn’t you hear them? They don’t like fire,” I said.
Kiara reached into her bag and pulled out a canister of hairspray and a lighter. I took them from her and hid them in my sweatshirt. That’s when we heard a creak from the stairs. Someone was coming up. Both girls dashed behind me. Another creak was heard just outside the bedroom door. Someone is standing just outside the door. I had one hand on the canister and the other on the lighter, ready for anything. The handle slowly twisted and the door slowly opened.
“Stay behind me,” I said. My skin crawled as Callen’s head crept around the door. His normally full head of brown hair seemed rather thin as his eyes, those strange pale brown eyes darted at us. I was truly creeped out.
“Callen?” Stella asked as she peered from behind me.
“What are you doing?” he asked, most of him still hidden by the door.
“Nothing,” Kiara said.
“Just talking about going to bed,” Stella said.
“You should do that. Stay in here. Don’t leave the house,” he said as his head slowly moved back behind the door. The door slowly closed, but we didn’t hear his footsteps leave.
We all traded looks with each other, but no one said a word. We’re trapped. I looked out the window and you could climb out onto the roof from it. I pointed to the window and Kiara knew exactly what I meant. She slowly crept to the window and tried to quietly open it. A loud creak came from it as Kiara slid the window open and the hand of the door turned as the door opened up. Callen peered from behind it. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing. Just getting some fresh air,” Kiara said. He eyed us suspiciously. Then he stepped inside and shut the door behind him. He just stood there, looking at us.
I looked over at Kiara and I could see the apprehension in her eyes. I gave her a nod and then pulled out the lighter and the hair spray. Callen’s eyes widened as I lit the lighter and sprayed the hair spray. A giant flame erupted in front of Callen. A blood-curdling screech escaped his lips as both Stella and Kiara bolted out of the window.
What happened next made my stomach turn. Callen started to melt. His face became a big glob of puss as his entire body deformed into one great big blob. Like a slug, it tried to slither away. From the flame. I took that moment to climb out of the window behind Stella. We made our way down the roof and climbed down the Lattice on the side of the house. They followed me to the pole barn just as their parents walked out of the house.
“What are you doing?” their dad asked.
“Get the fuck away from us,” I said, holding out the hair spray and lighter.
“Don’t go in there,” he screeched at us.
We rushed up to the pole barn as their father rushed at us. My alarm went off again and he shrieked, stopped, and held his ears. I hit him with a hot flame of the lighter combined with the hair spray and he melted into another blob. Its eyes were on top of its heads held up by tentacles. It appeared to have a mouth. It shrieked at the flame as it tried to slide away.
We bolted to the pole barn and what we found inside made Kiara puke. I could barely hold it in myself. The entire barn seemed to be infected by the same black slime. There was some giant black round egg looking thing in the middle that had long black slime support beams reaching out to the walls of the pole barn. It had to be the size of a fishing ship. Over by the far wall, I saw them. Not only were Kiara and Stella’s parents trapped in some kind of pods made of the black slime, but so was Callen. Kiara and Stella rushed over to them. I found a canister of gasoline lying around and I started to dose everything in it as Kiara took a long filet knife and cut open her father’s pod. He fell out of it covered in slime. She did the same to her mother and Callen’s pods.
The other imposter that looked like their mother came rushing in. I had just barely enough time to hit her with a big jet of flame before the gasoline caught fire. Loud shrieks were coming from the giant egg-like thing and the imposter mother. I rushed over to help Stella and Kiara get their parents and Callen out. Kiara opened the large door to the pole barn and we dragged their bodies out from the pole barn that was now in flames. I looked to find her imposter father trying to slide away down the yard. I ran up to it and hit it with another flame. I torched it until it shrieked no more.
I then ran inside to find the other one, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. I searched the entire house for it. I can’t imagine how it got away.
Kiara’s parents and Callen eventually woke up. We had to explain what all happened, but even then it was hard to believe. I still can’t imagine what would’ve happened if those things were able to take us. I also have a dread sense of paranoia from the one that managed to get away. It could look like anything. It’s safe to say I have been looking over my shoulder ever since.
The End.
Remember, you’re never safe in the dark…
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