Page 6 of His to Slash

I stood there for what felt like an eternity, my body trembling and my mind racing. I needed answers. I needed them now.

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I spent the following days at the town's library, poring over dusty tomes and yellowed newspapers, desperate for any scrap of information that might shed light on the terror haunting my days and nights. My eyes were grainy from hours of reading by the dim glow of the green-shaded banker's lamp, my fingers stained with newsprint, and my mind brimming with tales of a past that seemed to bleed into the present.

The Bone Keepers, it turned out, were no mere folktale. They were a grim reality of Red Hallow's history—a secret society of townsfolk who, according to the records I unearthed, believed in a perverse form of purification through ritualistic cannibalism. The thought of it made my skin crawl, but I forced myself to keep reading, to understand the depths of depravity this place had seen. It was a sickness that seemed to have seeped into the very soil of Red Hallow.

I dismissed the stories as macabre folklore at first, the kind of local legend that every old small town seemed to have. But the line between myth and reality began to blur as I uncovered more about the town's dark legacy. Murmurs and sideways glances from the townsfolk took on new meaning. The way they whispered about the Vesper name, about my grandparents, and my great aunts and uncles—it all pointed to something deeper, something I was only beginning to comprehend.

It was in an old microfiche archive that I found the first mention of him: Grayson Hale. The name seemed to leap off the screen, electrifying my senses. There he was, in a police report from decades ago, accused of a series of grisly murders that shook the town to its core. The details were scant, the case shrouded in mystery, but the pattern was unmistakable. The obsession with knives, the silence, the relentless pursuit of his victims—it was him. It had always been him.

As I pieced together the fragments of his past, a picture emerged of a boy twisted by abuse and isolation, his humanity stripped away until only the monster remained. Grayson Hale was the embodiment of Red Hallow's sins, a living ghost story that haunted the town's streets and whispered through its trees.

I closed my eyes, the weight of this new knowledge pressing down on me. Grayson was more than just a stalker or a troubled soul; he was the manifestation of Red Hallow's darkest secrets, a thread woven into the very fabric of the town's existence. And somehow, I was tangled up in it all.

The sun had set by the time I emerged from the library, the night air cool against my flushed cheeks. I walked the streets with purpose, my mind racing with questions and theories. How was I connected to Grayson Hale? What did he want from me? And more importantly, how could I stop him?

The answers, I knew, lay hidden in the shadows of Red Hallow, in the whispers of the past that echoed through the present, and in the fucked up scavenger hunt my mom left for me. I would uncover the truth, no matter how terrifying it might be. Red Hallow had chosen me, and I would face its darkness head-on.

seven

I paddedthrough the darkened house, the floorboards cool beneath my bare feet. The weight of my exhaustion pressed on me like a tangible force, but the thirst clawing at my throat was unrelenting. I needed water, needed to dampen the dryness that seemed to spread from my mouth to my very soul.

The kitchen was a haven of shadows, the only light a faint glow from the streetlamp outside that filtering through the window in weak, watery stripes. I filled my glass from the tap, the sound of the rushing water unnaturally loud in the stillness. The first sip was heaven, cold and refreshing, sliding down my parched throat like a balm.

I was halfway through my second sip when I saw him. Grayson. He stood just beyond the reach of my cameras, a specter caught in the artificial daylight of the streetlamp. His presence was an intrusion, a violation of the sanctuary I had tried to create within these walls.

Fear clutched at my chest. I stumbled back, my glass slipping from nerveless fingers to shatter on the tile floor. The sound was a sharp, painful echo in the silence, but it was nothing compared to the pounding of my heart.

I fumbled for the block of knives on the counter, my hands shaking as I wrapped my fingers around the handle of the largest one. The cool steel was a poor comfort, but it was all I had—a thin barrier between me and the monster at my door.

Grayson moved with a predator's grace, his steps measured and deliberate as he approached the house. There was no hesitation in his gait, no moment of doubt like there had been that night in the alley. This was a different kind of hunt, one that had been building to this moment, this inevitable confrontation.

My breath came in short, ragged gasps as I watched him, frozen in a mixture of fear and morbid fascination. He didn't stop at the front door, didn't pause to consider the consequences of his actions. Instead, he raised his hand, the pale skin almost luminous in the muted light, and drove it through the glass window inset in the door.

The sound of shattering glass was a scream in the night, a harbinger of violence that set my pulse racing. I watched in horrified silence as Grayson reached through the jagged opening to unlock the door. The soft click of the turning lock was a gunshot in the quiet, a countdown to an end I wasn't ready to face.

I backed away, the knife clutched tight in my hand, my mind awhirl with panic and disbelief. This couldn't be happening again. Not here. Not now.

The door creaked open, revealing the dark silhouette of my pursuer. His presence filled the room, a tangible force that seemed to suck the air from my lungs. I opened my mouth to scream, to summon help from the depths of my terror, but all that emerged was a strangled whimper.

Grayson stepped over the threshold, his movements fluid and eerily silent. The mask he wore was a blank canvas, devoid of emotion, yet somehow brimming with malice. I could feel his gaze on me; a heavy, oppressive weight that pinned me in place.

I was trapped, cornered like a frightened animal with nowhere to run. The knife in my hand felt laughably inadequate, a child's toy against the darkness that was Grayson Hale. But I wouldn't go down without a fight. I wouldn't let him take me without inflicting some measure of pain in return.

I had watched him move with the grace of a shadow, a nightmare given flesh, and fear had gripped me in its icy claws. But in that moment, something within me snapped, a twisted kind of defiance that bubbled up from the pit of my despair. With a screech that tore from my throat like a battle cry, I charged, the knife in my hand an extension of my fury.

The blade sank into the meat of his shoulder, and for a heartbeat, we were frozen in a macabre tableau—me, the terrorized prey, and him, the relentless predator, now marked by my rebellion. Then he released a sound that chilled me to my core: a deep, guttural moan that rumbled from his chest, so carnal and raw that it struck a nerve deep within me, igniting an unwelcome warmth between my legs.

My breath came in ragged pants as I stumbled back, my eyes locked on his. I had expected pain, rage, a furious onslaught—not this. His reaction was a perversion, a warping of something primal and undeniable, and it terrified me more than any violence he could have wrought.

"Please," I heard myself beg, my voice cracking with the weight of my terror. "Don't hurt me."

I had planned for this, rehearsed the escape routes in my mind until they were etched into my very being. My gaze darted to the back door, the quickest path to freedom, to safety. But as I turned to flee, his hand shot out, a vice-like grip tangling in my hair and yanking me back with such force that stars exploded across my vision.

Pain seared through my scalp, sharp and biting, and I found myself hauled back against the unyielding wall of his chest. His breath was hot against my ear.

"Carly," he murmured, the first word I had ever heard him speak. His voice was a low growl, a sound that seemed to resonate with the very darkness that clung to him.

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