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_________ c h a p t e r f o u r t y - s i x
"When he attacks, our friend described it as a trance. Like a waking nightmare. That's why we think he's coming for her next," Nancy explains to Victor, as Sam keeps glancing at the wall, trying to figure out if what she saw was real.
"Sam..." a low, menacing voice echoes through the room, making her look around in fear.
"Does any of this, anything we've told you, sound like what happened to your family?" Nancy continues, unaware of Sam's situation, only for Victor to ignore her. "Victor. I know this is hard-"
"You don't know anything!" he snaps.
"You're right. We don't know. That's why we're here. To learn, to understand."
"We need to know how you survived that night," Robin adds.
"Survived? Is that what you call this? Did I survive?" he scoffs at them, garnering Sam's attention yet again. "No, I assure you, I am still very much in hell."
It's then that she sees the man's eyes, now swollen shut.
"Sam..."
"What?" she turns around completely, once again seeing the clock fused to the wall, and no longer hearing Nancy or Robin in the background.
Just as she turns around, the clock cracks, allowing a ton of spiders to pour out.
"Don't worry, Sam. I'm saving you for last," the voice continues, before everything disappears again.
Her heart rate picks up at his words, just wanting this entire nightmare to end.
"Sam?" Robin whispers, as Victor continues his story.
"Sorry, I just... I don't know."
"It was a magnificent home. Yeah. Alice said it looked like it was from a fairy tale."
"Was... was Alice your daughter?" Sam clears her throat.
"Mmm. Yeah. But Henry, my... My boy, he was a sensitive child... and I could see he felt something was wrong. We had one month of peace in that house. And then it began. Dead animals, mutilated, tortured, began to appear near our home. Rabbits, squirrels, chickens, even dogs. The police chief blamed the attacks on a wildcat. This... this was no wildcat. This was an evil. An evil neither animal nor human. This was a spawn of Satan. A demon. And it was even closer than I realized," he retells, and Sam frowns, eyes watering.
"What, um, what do you mean?" Sam hesitantly asks.
"My family began to have encounters conjured by this demon. Nightmares. Waking, living nightmares. This demon, it seemed to take pleasure in tormenting us. Even poor, innocent Alice. It wasn't long before I began to have encounters of my own. I suppose all evil must have a home. And though I had not a rational explanation for it, I... I could sense this demon, always close."
