The roads of the swamp were so nonsensical that by the time you realized you were going the wrong way, you had no idea how long you’d been off track or which way to go to get back to the route you should’ve been taking.
To top that off, you were running low on gas. If you didn’t find somewhere to re-fuel, you’d be stranded. And gas stations weren’t common along dirt roads in the middle of nowhere.
You killed the engine, and the systems in your truck slowly shut off. The headlights flickered out, leaving you in complete darkness. You slammed your head against the steering wheel in frustration.
This was your fault. If you’d planned, if you hadn’t been obsessed with leaving so soon and actually stopped to look at a map before driving out to die in the middle of the Louisiana swamp-
“I’m not going to die,” you said to yourself, grip tight on the steering wheel.
You step out of the car. It’s almost pitch black, with trees too dense to let the light of the moon through. The sound of cicadas is nearly deafening. As you scan your surroundings, you spot something in the distance.
Maybe half a mile away, there’s something that looks like a warm yellow light. A house.
It’s the closest thing you have to a chance.
You climb back in your truck, and drive further down the road. As you get closer, the light source becomes more clear- it’s the porchlight to a decrepit farmhouse. You pull to the side of the road, and take your backpack from the passenger seat. You open the glove compartment, take out your handgun, and slide it into one of the pockets of your pants. If worse comes to worst.
From a distance, the porchlight had stood out against the darkness of its surroundings, but now it’s clearer than ever how dim it is. You approach the front door, and knock twice.
It falls open, revealing the inside is completely dark.
No. This can’t be it, your car probably can’t make it another mile and there’s nothing anywhere near here. There has to be something. A light being on out front means there’s power. Power means that if there’s a phone, it’ll be working. So you enter the house.
There’s no reply. You weren’t really expecting one. It was stupid, in hindsight. If there was some sort of swamp methhead serial killer in here, they wouldn’t have responded anyway. But it still helped a little to calm your nerves. You took your phone from your pocket. Still no cell service, but the battery was high enough that you decided it was safe to use it as a flashlight.
You turned the flashlight on, and slowly looked around the inside of the house. It was disgusting, to say the least. Whoever had lived here had to have left quickly. There was still food left out on the table, but it’s since become a blurry mass of mold. The fruit flies were so dense you nearly inhaled one several times.
You pulled your shirt over your nose and mouth, and did everything you could to avoid touching anything as you made your way into what looked like the living room. You shone the light around, but all you saw was decomposing furniture and wallpaper eaten away by black mold. The table under the window caught your eye. There was something off about it, but you didn’t realize exactly what until looking closer. In the center of the table, there’s a rectangle a little bigger than your hand that was almost entirely free from dust and rot. A rectangle big enough to fit a phone. And it had to have been removed recently.
Looters, you thought. Maybe it was one of the only working things left here, and to your detriment, someone had decided it was worth salvaging. In frustration, you kicked the leg of the table. Hard enough that it broke and clattered to the floor. If you weren’t alone and somehow hadn’t been detected yet, they surely knew you were here now. You were about to give up and go back to your car when you noticed something you hadn’t previously.
On the other end of the room, there was a cracked-open door with the smallest bit of light coming from it.
You approached it. It led down an unsteady set of stairs, into what looked like an unfinished basement. At the very bottom, there was a pale light creeping from around the corner. There being a single light on in an abandoned house made no sense, but you were desperate. You put your hand in your pocket and held the grip of your handgun.
The stairs creaked loudly as you walked down them. You took the gun from your pocket as you turned the corner at the end of the staircase.
It was empty. The area was very small, containing only a chair and a small wooden table, with a lamp and… with a phone.
You rushed forward and picked it up. When you held the receiver to your ear, there was nothing. You felt a cold rush of adrenaline through your veins. It was covered in grime, it was entirely possible it didn’t work anymore. You glanced around, and your eyes landed on the end of the cord. Thank fuck. It was just unplugged. But as you leaned down to pick it up, you heard the floorboards above you creaking
"God fucking dammit" lucas yelled out as he frustratedly kicked at nothing but the air. He grumbled and sighed dramatically dispite no one being there to hear it before leaving the barn to go see if there anything interesting in the house to tinker with or somethings of the sort.
Lucas was bored. Unbelievable fucking bored.
His last victim died a while ago, and he was just staring to get a kick out of them to. The well of trap ideas had run dry, not that he had much materials at the moment to make anything anyways. Doomscrolling had lost his intrest, especially since he wasnt technically allowed to be on social media much less post anything, meaning he couldn't troll anymore. Hell, not even using his left hand was giving him much serotonin.
So, He wandered into the part of the property least likely to have Jack or Marguerite in, he did his best to avoid them even before the mold and no matter how bored he was he was definitely not about to get harassed about eating godawful cooking before it was even dinner time, or deal with whatever mood the old man was in.
He waundered about the house lazily, looking around as if he was seeing it for the first time - it had been quite a bit since he was in this part and man, it really had gone to shit. after a few minutes lucas ended up deciding this was more boring then just staring at his celling, so he picked up one of Jack's packs of cigarettes he left lying around just to piss him off and was about to call it a day and go back to the barn - untill he heard something.
Something breaking in the other room followed by footsteps Not heavy enough to be his dad, not in the right pattern to be his mom, and he knows for a fact zoe isnt willingly out of her trailer right now so... a new intruder. And, a new play thing to hunt down
Now, Usually, lucas didn't bother - letting jack deal with intruders and taking whatever plaything that wasnt finished off that he deemed would be a fun toy to put in a trap for a few hours - maybe a couple days if he found their screams particularly fun to hear, liked the way they bled, and or was just in that sort of mood.
Truth be told, lucas was coward. Its not that he was shying away from pain, most things werent off the table for him, including masochism. But the idea of lasting consequences, somehow dying, or worse - a bruised ego, made him, quite frankly, a pussy. there was a reason he watched his victims through a screen for the most part.
Sure, sometimes he'd get hands on but there was typically a level of separation that made the space more controlled. Eg. Victims being tied up, to badly injured, drugged, ect. He liked being in complete control in that way, dispite him having an overwhelming advantage on an average person due to the mold - that and well, he cant exactly die. He still was too scared to take a chance at someone outside of one of his trap environments... usually.
But, under certain circumstances - boredom - he'd be willing to catch a target himself..well, probably with a molded or two at his disposal if things went south. Besides, he wasnt forcefully taught how to use a shotgun for nothing
So, he slinked away to find one of the many shotguns strewn about the baker estate and quickly makes his way back before the old man could get his hands on whoever had wandered onto the grounds.
He searched the floor that he first heard them on before noticing the door leading down had now been wide open. Bingo.
Lucas grinned, holding his shotgun and quickly made his way down the stairs, coming face to face with the intruder, phone cable in hand and.. its a guy. Not what lucas was nessecarily hoping for, but a victim is a victim.
"You lost?" he asked in a stupidly cocky and mocking tone - committing to the confrontation
