Hunted, Haunted, Or Worse?
“Stupid Halloween. It’s not even a real holiday yet people go crazy for it.”
I was in a particularly bad mood tonight. One of my “friends” from work had invited me and a few other people to meet at his house for a movie night. Of course, given it was Halloween, they had decided to watch a horror movie rather than the movie they originally had said.
“What’s wrong with The Nightmare Before Christmas?! It’s a perfectly valid Halloween movie! But nooooo, they had to watch some dumb gore fest that made me feel sick!”
I had never handled blood well. So of course they had absolutely crucified me over how squeamish I was.
“There’s a difference between being scared and being grossed out,” I grumbled, “Just because I don’t like horror movies doesn’t mean that I’m a coward.”
I jumped as a deer bounded across the road in front of my car before grumbling to myself for flinching. Another reason I hated horror movies, I always feel on edge after them and flinched like a scared kid at the smallest noises.
“Still doesn’t make me a coward, just means that I have good reflexes and senses. I have the eyes of a hawk and the ears of a fox.”
Another thing I do when nervous, I talk to myself. Somehow just hearing myself instead of other sounds helps me calm down.
I drove in relative silence after that until I arrived at my house. It wasn’t anything too special given that housing was relatively cheap in my town. Just a small two-story house. You might think that makes me rich because my house had two floors, but it’s simply because they made the houses taller rather than longer to fit them closer together in the suburb where I lived. Either way, I was the only person who lived on the cul-de-sac of my neighborhood. The houses around me were still waiting to be bought. I guess people were looking for a bigger lot or didn’t like living close together or something.
I pulled into the driveway and killed the ignition before stepping out into the crisp, autumn air. I glanced around at the dark houses framed by shadowy woods all around. The wind moaning through the trees and the leaves scraping together sounded almost like the claws and growls of some beast. If you looked too long at the spaces between the trunks, there almost would appear to be eyes staring back at you from those spaces. Spaces as black as the gaps between the stars. Darkness too deep and profound to pierce that could hide creatures both blind and terrible the likes of which could not be comprehended by the human mind. I shivered,
“Dang it, why’d I have to go working myself up.”
I pulled my house key out and unlocked the door before stepping into the unlight house. As usual the door stuck like crazy. That’s the thing about these houses. They were cheap because they weren’t great quality. The purpose of them was to build as many houses as possible as inexpensively as possible. I had to shoulder charge the door to close it before locking it behind me.
“Be it ever so heinous, there’s no place like home.”
I dropped my keys on the table before shrugging off my jacket. The perks of living alone were that nobody harped at me when I left clothes on the dinner table and I could walk around my home without clothes judgment free. The downside... I basically had no human interaction except for at work or the rare occasion I went out.
I walked upstairs and into my bedroom. Well, more like the only room other than the bathroom upstairs. The downstairs just had the kitchen that I’d put a table in, and a room with a couch, tv, my computer, and my washing machine and drying machine... which I’d bought at a yard sale for like twenty bucks.
I tromped upstairs and grabbed some new clothes before heading into the bathroom. I smelled like smoke and sweat from both work and the house of my work “friend.” He hadn’t smoked when I’d been there, but his house still smelled like an ashtray.
I turned on the water before stripping down and proceeding to wash myself. I closed my eyes to wash my face and when I opened them—
“OH SH....”
I paused before grumbling as I looked through the shower curtain at the clothes I’d hung on the door. At first glance it had looked like a person was standing there.
“Nice, real nice. I’m jumping at my own clothes.”
I turned off the water before stepping out and getting dressed. I exited the bathroom and sat down on my bed before pulling out my phone. As I contemplated getting my computer from downstairs to either watch something or play a game, I heard the wind suddenly pick up followed by a bizarre cracking noise.
“Great, a tree probably just fell. So help me if it winds up making me lose power I swear I’ll... punch Mother Nature in the face.”
I groaned as I stretched out my back before lazily standing and deciding to get my computer after all... after a quick trip to the bathroom.
I was washing my hands when I heard it. A sound like the distinct creaking sound that my front door made when it opened.
“But there’s no way. I locked the door. It was probably... the floor settling, or the walls creaking. Yeah, totally just that.”
I quietly left the bathroom and crept down the stairs. I was completely sure it was nothing, but in the off case that it was something... well, I’d rather be the first to notice.
Upon reaching the bottom of the stairs I saw that the door was still closed and, after I tried the handle, still locked.
“See... nothing. Just the wind and the weather.”
I froze when I heard some sort of bizarre footsteps from the other room. I say bizarre because it was oddly fast and... weird sounding. I tried to give a typical, “come out here or I’ll make you come out” manly challenge, but it came out more like I’d just tried to swallow a frog. Suddenly, I heard hushed voices from the adjoining room.
“See?! It’s totally the house of one of them!”
“Shhh! Keep your voice down! We need to be careful about this.”
The two voices were feminine sounding, but sounded a bit... off. Another, new, feminine voice chimed in,
“But, I mean, isn’t that why we’re here? To finally meet a human?!”
“Well... yeah but—“
“But what? We came here to see a human, let’s see a human!”
“Maybe it’s not home and we should just leave? I mean, we already have seen one of their houses so—“
The first voice spoke up,
“Oh come on! It took you forever to decide to sneak us here! Don’t chicken out now!”
“But... but if anypony finds out I could lose my job!”
There was a pause before the third voice smugly said,
“But aren’t you curious after reading all those books for book club. And I know that you think that human ‘men’ are dreamy.”
“I-I do not!”
“~Oh, the human on the cover of book two looks so hunky and confident! I just want him to hug me and let me snuggle up to his chest!~”
“I-I never said that!”
Three joined in here.
“~I like to imagine him running his hands through my mane and rubbing my ears.~”
“S-stop it!”
“~I just want to lie in his arms and have him rub my belly like—“
“STOP IT!”
There were three collective gasps followed by a chorus of shushing before everything fell silent. Okay, something was going on that was not normal. Either a bunch of very weird girls had broken into my home or aliens were invading and had written books about us and as such were enamored with us. I don’t know which is weirder. I carefully crept back up the stairs. I couldn’t open the door without making a lot of noise, and one of them already had suggested they leave. If I was lucky they’d go and be none the wiser about my eavesdropping.
Unfortunately I am never lucky.
I heard those weird footsteps again approaching the stairs. I hurriedly looked around for either a place to hide or a weapon of some sort. Wait! I should call the police! And tell them... what? That I have a group of women/aliens in my home and they are oddly fan-girling about humans? Yeah, like they’d believe me. It’s Halloween, they’d probably think it was another prank call or something.
As I heard them nearing the top of the stairs, I hurriedly ducked into the bathroom and closed the door. With the lights off I stood with baited breath by the door and pressed my ear against the wood, listening for the intruders. Sure enough, I heard the first voice say,
“Wooooow, this must be its bedroom!”
Three replied,
“Yeah, I wonder where it is though? You know, the human.”
Two was next,
“Hopefully nowhere around here! I said I’d take you through the portal to the human world, but I never said we’d meet a human! They still don’t know about the existence of our world and we want to keep it that way!”
One again,
“But aren’t you curious if they’re like in all those fantasy stories? Are they really capable of flying without wings and creating carriages that don’t need a pony to pull them!?”
Three again,
“Ooh! What’s in here!”
Crap.
The knob turned and the door opened to reveal three... things. They came up to about my stomach and stood on four legs. They had a short snout, a roundish head, a mane, a tail, and massive eyes. They looked like weird horses except that they weren’t all similar. One had a horn (yes, like a little unicorn) except its fur was pink and it had a light blue mane and looked super cartoony. The other was more like a traditional horse (in that it didn’t have a horn) and had an orange coat and green mane, so still weird. The last one though, the last one was by far the strangest. It had grey fur and a dark blue mane, but it also had cat eyes and batwings. We all stared at eachother before screaming and backing up. I fell right into the shower while the horse things just stared at me. I looked at them in shock as they turned to eachother in surprise. Finally the normal(ish) one asked, (this one was the voice I’d been calling One.)
“Is that... what I think it is?”
The bat one gulped and said, (this one was Three)
“It totally is....”
After a brief pause the bat horse and horse horse screamed and charged at me. I expected them to attack me but instead I found myself squashed between two alien horses in a massive hug.
“OH MY CELESTIA IT’S REALLY A REAL LIFE HUMAN! THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE!”
I tried to speak but was being choked by the bat one as it wrapped its arms (hooves? Legs? Whatever) around my neck and began rubbing its cheek against mine. Dang they’re soft.
“This is so awesome! Nopony will ever believe this!”
Finally the unicorn (bet you can’t guess which voice it was) walked over.
“Oh sweet Celestia. I’m so dead.”
I feebly tried to extricate myself from the dog pile (or horse pile as it were) but simply ended up falling backwards with two incredibly soft aliens landing on top of me. The bat one turned to unicorn and said,
“Can you believe it, Prism!? A real human! This is so cool! See, me and Tangerine were right!”
Tangerine alien gasped.
“Nova! Where’s the camera?! We need a picture of us hugging the human!”
Bat gasped and the two ran off back down the stairs. Prism (that’s what bat had said, right?) stared at me before opening and closing her mouth a few times. I simply sat in the shower, too stunned to do anything. I mean, I just had two fluffy aliens hug me and declare their need of a picture like I was a character at an amusement park! What the actual heck!?
“You’re... y-you’re.”
I shook my head and asked,
“W-what... what exactly—“
Before I could finish Prism squealed and hopped on me, forcing me back on my back. She wriggled around until she had wormed her way under my shirt and had her head poked out the top. She immediately began to rub her snout against my neck while grabbing me in a bearhug, all the while squealing,
“This is just like I’d always imagined! You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to meet a human. I mean, I love the entire Chronicles of Humania series! They’re sooooo good. Oh! Oh! Can you comb my mane?! Or how about rub my ears!? Or maybe give me a BELLY RUB WITH YOUR AWESOME HUMAN FINGERS!”
She squealed and began shaking me in her excitement and I yelped,
“OKAY JUST DON’T HURT ME!”
I tentatively ran my fingers through her silky mane before she pressed her cheek into my palm and began rubbing her face against it. I gulped before squeaking,
“I am very confused and a little uncomfortable”
She rolled over onto her back and stared at me with her huge eyes. I looked around before mumbling,
“W-what are you doing?”
“Waiting for my belly rub! Pleeeeeeaaase! Pretty please! Pretty please with sugar and—“
“A-alright! Just don’t probe me or whatever!”
I slowly reached down past my shirt and shakily began to rub her fuzzy belly. Her back leg kicked and she hummed slightly in a way that would have been cute had I not been freaking out due to the overly touchy aliens in my house demanding displays of affection.
“W-what do you want from me?”
Before she could reply her friends returned. Nova (I think) gasped.
“No. Way. OMC me next! Me next!”
I yelped as I was accosted by another cuddly invader as she snuggled up against me. At her insistence I began to rub her ears with my free hand. Tangerine raised a camera and called,
“Say cheese!”
“Cheeeeeeeese!”
“Cheeeeeeeese!”
“SAVE ME!”
I blinked the stars out of my eyes as the last alien set down the camera and moved to nuzzle my cheek.
“What the devil is going on!!”
They all just giggled at my cries before the call for more pictures was given. They dragged me out of the bathroom and took turns doing different poses with me (with me worriedly complying to avoid experimentation) while the others giggled and called out different ideas.
“Ooh! Ooh! Hold me in your arms!”
*Click!*
“My turn! Okay, now give me a piggyback ride.”
*Snap*
“Me! Me! Let’s press our cheeks together so it looks like we’re stuck in a tiny photobooth!”
*Flash*
“Hoof wrestling!”
*Click*
“Funny face!”
*Click Flash*
“Do bunny ears with your fingers!”
*Snap Flash*
“Finger guns!”
*Flash Pop*
“Look serious!”
“Look romantic!”
“Hold my hooves in your hands!”
“Give me your shirt!”
“Flex for me!”
“Make it look like I’m swooning in your arms!”
*Flash Click Pop Snap*
I blearily sat there as they looked over their photos. They all were giggling and chattering before Prism said,
“Alright, one more before we go.”
I tried to back away but they all crowded me and each planted a kiss on my cheek.
*Click*
“That one’s obviously the best.”
“How’d you even get in my—“
They turned to me and Nova smiled.
“Thanks Mr. Human! See you soon hopefully!”
“Wait, what?! I—“
“Bye!”
“Bye!”
“Bye!”
And just like that they were running down the stairs and out the door. I sat completely stunned for a second before grabbing my phone and calling my boss.
“Yeah... uh, I don’t think I can come in tomorrow... for... uh... medical reasons.”
I hung up and trudged shirtless to my bed. (Prism had stolen my shirt) I wearily sat down and stared off into space.
“What... the bloody... blue... blazes.”
(Late that night)
I woke up as something soft and fluffy pressed against my back. I jolted upright and turned on the light to see the three aliens from before lying in my bed. I screamed and Tangerine groaned,
“Turn the light off! We’re trying to sleep!”
“Why are you in my bed!”
Prism nervously chuckled,
“Yeah, about that. The portal back to our world closed and will only open again in the morning. So we’re crashing with you!”
Nova cheered,
“Sleepover!”
I sat completely still for a second before groaning and turning the light off.
“To heck with it. If you can’t beat them, join them.”