"House Party" by Don Anelli

House Party

by Don Anelli

For Danny and his new bride, Claire, it had been everything they were expecting. Wedding days were supposed to be intense, but like their relationship, it had all gone beautifully, and they were ready to start their lives together.

But they had one more thing to get through: the house party reception.

As everyone piled into their house and congratulated the happy couple, danced the night away, ate, drank, or whatever else they could muster, Danny noticed his friend Charlie wasn’t there yet. By the time he spots Claire to let him know about it, Charlie appears at the front door, frazzled and nervous as if he had just encountered something unexpected.

Blaming the tardiness on a series of strange accidents that seemed to be preventing him from getting to the party, Charlie tries to catch everyone up on the events he’s encountered before the wind picks up outside. Blowing the front door open, knocking down standing guests, and even upending the furniture as curtains and pillows get knocked to the floor, it becomes obvious that something’s going on.

Charlie immediately begins freaking out, claiming this is what he experienced before getting to the party. He runs toward the kitchen only for a wall hanging picture to go flying and crash into his back, sending Charlie to the floor. The spinning blades from the ceiling fan above dislodge immediately after, impaling themselves into each limb and severing each from his body, drenching several onlookers in his blood. Finally, the main ceiling unit falls onto his back, splitting him open, effectively killing him in front of everyone.

By the time everyone notices, they immediately try to flee back out the front door, but are prevented from doing so by an invisible barrier, preventing them from leaving. With Danny and Claire trying to figure out what’s going on, every one of their guests who touched the invisible force field began melting horribly, with their skin blistering and falling off from the point of contact until each was a puddle of steaming goo, blood, and other chemicals spreading across the floor as more finished melting.

Luckily, Danny and Claire were not affected, still in shock over Charlie and the resulting chaos, to attempted an escape, but not doing that has left them the sole survivors as they see their friends and family left in bloody pools on their floor.

Before them, the front door closed and locked shut, despite no one visibly moving it. Holding each other close and trying to back away, the sound of clacking heels on the floor in front of them freezes them in their tracks, as again, nothing is visible in front of them.

Realizing the steps are getting closer to them, Danny and Claire try to leave the room, but are stopped when Claire is yanked free from Danny’s grasp and falls away. In a matter of seconds, she is then suspended in the air, nothing visible around her, holding her aloft. Danny realizes and turns to help her, but is hit in the stomach with superhuman strength, sending him flying into the air and landing against the wall of the room with enough force to knock him out cold.

Concerned about Danny but unable to reach him, being suspended in the air, Claire calls out to Danny but is unable to reach him. Suddenly, she feels a tugging at the necklace around her neck, given to her when Danny and she started dating. Ripped off in one motion, she is thrown back and lands on the couch with enough force to bounce to the floor with a thud that doesn’t knock her out cold but leaves her struggling for air slightly.

Getting to her feet and crawling over to Danny, she gets pulled back by a force grabbing her leg and yanking hard, putting plenty of space between them. However, she still can’t see anything or anyone in the room with her. Looking around anxiously and trying to call Danny if she can’t reach him, a demented, unearthly laugh fills the room. She recognizes it immediately: Martha, Charlie’s mother, even with the distorted echo ringing through the voice.

And she has been dead for nine months.

Trying to call out to her, Claire is unable to get anything but more distorted, ghostly laughing, causing her to try leaving again. With objects shattering and crashing around her, stopping the exit path, she stops and tries pleading for her life to Martha’s ghost to stop it and let her leave. No answer. She tries again, but still nothing. Taking no chances, she stays there for a few minutes waiting for something to happen, but it never does.

She takes a chance and finally decides to leave the spot, and the eerie calm is unnerving, the rotting skin and congealing blood hitting her hard that her friends and family are gone. Helping Danny to his feet, she finally gets him awake and conscious of what's going on. Aware that the necklace was snatched and missing, Claire asks him about what everything was about, to which Danny doesn’t know.

The unearthly voice returns one more time, warning them that it only wanted what was rightfully hers, as the necklace had been stolen from her years ago, and that now she was making sure no one else ever took it from her. That no one else would leave the party alive.