#execution submission

Boardwalk of Blood

TJ PARKER HAS BEEN FOUND GUILTY

COMMENCING EXECUTION

Lighten Up!

Tristan wakes up in a soft, warm bed. He wiggled and stretched his fingers and toes, taking note of the feeling of linen caressing his skin. A gentle blue light was cast over the room, the moon winking through the thin curtains as Tristan sat up in his bed. As the wig maker glanced around, he found that he was back in his room in New Jersey. However, there was something strange about this room. All of the furniture seemed a lot… bigger.

Tristan cautiously stepped out of his bed and placed his barefeet onto the gray shag carpet. Noticing his attire, he realized he was wearing a pajama set. Blue and white striped pants with a matching button up shirt. He hasn’t worn one of these since he was a little kid.

As soon as he made that connection, he suddenly realized why everything in the room seemed bigger. Was this room constructed to make him feel young again? Why would that be?

Tristan felt his skin grow clammy despite the growing warmth of his cozy bed room. As he studied his room, he saw items that he had gotten rid of years ago- and all of his wall scrolls, nendoroids, and most importantly, his wigs and wig heads… they were all gone. He rushed over to his wardrobe, the perfect spot to keep all of his wig supplies, and yanked both doors open. Inside, there was no hair spray, no needles and thread, no wefts. All he found was his old soccerball and basketball, his ant farm, a shelf reserved for winter coats and gloves, a binder of old pokemon and yu gi oh cards. Tristan swallowed hard as he yanked the binder out and tore through the pages of cards in rage and disbelief.

    He didn’t find cards inside the plastic sleeves. He found photos. Tons of photos of David Hancock. Tristan immediately yelped and threw the binder across the room to get it away from him. Dave was his best friend when he was younger, but seeing him here now, it was too much. Ever since Dave’s death, even the slightest mention of him, anything, set Tristan off. He blamed himself for his death, and now, Dave’s here. Is he here for revenge? As Tristan glanced over to the picture frames on his walls, all the photos were, again, replaced with David.

His eyes looked accusing, mocking. Tristan couldn’t stop himself from clenching a fist over his heart. Just seeing his former best friend staring him down like that sent a sharp ache through his chest. This isn’t him though... This is that bastard Monobear. Why couldn’t monobear just kill him? Why did he have to humiliate him and use David against him like this?

Tristan’s fists clenched automatically, his face turning red. Anger began to flare up inside of him. Tristan’s nostrils flared as he lunged forward to the wall and began knocking all the picture frames off the wall. He punched the glass out, broke the frames. He did anything to rid himself of those knowing glares.

Tristan collapsed onto the floor and stared down at the shards of broken glass and wood all around him. He had to calm down. Tristan put a finger to his neck to feel his pulse as he began taking deep breaths, trying to slow down his heart rate and allow himself to cool down.

However, he just felt hotter and hotter with every passing minute. Tristan carefully stood up and stepped over to the door to his room. As soon as he placed his hand on the knob, he jerked his hand away. The heat of the knob was blistering.

The shock brought Tristan out of his haze. The smell of smoke became clear to him, just as the door itself began to burn. The flames pushed under the door and burned through the door. The sparks danced out across the carpet, traveling quickly around the room. Tristan jumped back onto his bed and began to sob uncontrollably. He watched as the flames pranced through the fabric of the carpet and crawled along the walls. Tristan felt entirely heart broken. Their only goal is to destroy. Everything was being destroyed.

Tristan was forced to retreat beneath the blankets on his bed when the smoke and sparks became too much for him to bear. Soon, he felt the heat closing in. His room had become an inferno now.

The flames danced elegantly as they devoured Tristan’s cowering figure. The horrified screams didn’t last long, as Tristan was choked out by smoke and burned alive.

In a matter of minutes, there was nothing else to hear other than calm crackling, nothing left to see except smoke billowing out of the holes in the walls and ceiling, flames jumping gleefully in satisfaction.

In the middle of an empty living room, belonging to an empty mansion. It’s been abandoned for what seems like a decade or two, Jamie looks around his surroundings. The floor creaks, wallpaper is peeling, and there are insects crawling along the walls. It’s the kind of house you would see in horror movies or paranormal investigation shows. Looking behind him, he sees the double doors he had just entered from, then turns to look ahead of him again to see the fireplaces in the middle of the wall, on both sides of it are bookshelves filled completely with books of different sizes. He makes his way to one of the two doors to the corridor that will take him to the stairs. The hinges squeak as the door opens and he makes his way to the next door, opening it up to reveal the long staircase. Blood is splattered along the walls, but the ghostwriter simply ignores it and makes his way up to the next floor.

A wrong foot placement causes a step to break; Jamie watches as his leg goes through the hole, wincing a bit at the sudden pain, then calmly pulls it back out to continue up. The cuts in the wood and nails scrape him and cause a cut in his leg, Jamie pays no mind to the blood dripping down his leg or the cut in his jeans as he continues to walk up the stairs. Creaking and groaning of old wood fills up the otherwise empty space, it’s cold as if a ghost were there, taking in any warm air that makes it into the mansion. A setting like that begs for ghosts and demons to follow you around, as that is exactly what might be going on. As he reaches the top of the staircase, he lets out a breath of exhaustion before pushing the door open to reveal another room.

The young author goes his way through the empty and blood splattered hallway. The aura of the room feeling more eerie than the last, the feeling of someone following him growing stronger. Shrugging it off, he proceeds to the end of the path. A dead end covered in thick blood. Disappointed in his findings, he turns to leave, stopping in his tracks as he sees something almost demon like blocking his path, a figure looking like the night holding a crowbar over its head. It didn’t take a genius to know what was to come next. As the demon struck, Jamie pushed past it, beginning to run back to the stairs, sure that whatever the thing was was definitely following him, and fast.

He pushed the door open and began to run down the stairs, keeping good footing although he was running downhill on steps. So close the end of the stairs…just a bit more…His foot goes to step down on the next step, but goes straight through. The broken step. Jamie had completely forgotten about it. He falls on his face on the next couple of steps, breaking his nose. Fuck, he really could not let this happen at the moment. He pushes himself up and spends a few seconds getting his rather sore leg out of the hole, blood dripping from his nose, which is beginning to swell, down onto his pants. He gets his leg out just in time, as the demon was right behind him and about to strike again. Running down the next few steps, hissing through the pain, he goes to open the door to get out of the corridor, just to find that the door locked. He considers breaking it down to escape, but just as that thought goes through his mind, a shadow looms over him.