Youtube kiss scenes

KissingScenes

2021.05.07 12:00 Igris_woo KissingScenes

Kissing scenes from movies and TV shows
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2009.09.17 00:07 atrais Miniatures of stuff

This is a subreddit intended for scale miniature food and furniture for dollhouses.
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2011.03.13 16:32 DrJulianBashir /r/ScenesFromAHat, where everything's made up and the points don't matter

Welcome to the official unofficial community for the game Scenes from a Hat, as played in the popular improv comedy show "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" Create hilarious scene responses to some recent prompts, or post new scenes and see what the community can deliver! Just make sure to create a scene with your response; Reddit has enough of that from AskReddit ! For a sample of how the game is played, check this video: https://youtu.be/aJQ75U4JGgM Also, make sure to check the rules. Bzzzzzzzzz!
[link]

2024.05.23 13:30 readingrachelx Housewife highlights/Daily shit talk - May 23rd, 2024

DUBAI
NEW JERSEY
BEVERLY HILLS
ATLANTA
BRAVO
AFRICAN FRANCHISES
Links to this week's episode discussion posts:
submitted by readingrachelx to RHDiscussion [link] [comments]

2024.05.23 13:24 geraraag [TOMT][MOVIE] A family lets a stripper girl live with them/An intruder lives in a brother and sister's house and leaves strange notes.

I only remember a few things about the first one, there was a girl who works as a stripper and for some reason a family made up of 1 father, 1 mother, a 13 year old boy and an 18 year old girl allow her to live in their house. There is a scene where the stripper kisses the girl and the boy is hidden recording with a camera.
The other is a horror or mystery movie, a brother and a sister live in a big house and the girl is paranoid because she thinks someone is leaving strange notes in the house. Then it is discovered that there was indeed a guy hiding in that house. They have a mother who lives in a psychiatric hospital and is half crazy.
submitted by geraraag to tipofmytongue [link] [comments]

2024.05.23 12:56 Borsund 23 May, 2024 - 3.0.1 Update Discussions Megathread

Ahoy! This post is created specifically for discussions of update. Some other useful links to follow:
For bug reports please comment on 3.0.1 Update Bug Reports Megathread
Previous 3.0.0.1 Discussions Megathread
Safes Seas FAQ
Sea of Thieves 2024 Preview Event
Sea of Thieves Season 12: Official Content Update Video
Sea of Thieves Explained - Playlist
Official Release Notes

Pirate Emporium

Show off your personal style with purchases from the Pirate Emporium! Pick up exclusive cosmetics such as ship liveries, costumes, weapons, pets and emotes using your Ancient Coins, purchasable with real money. Head to the Pirate Emporium to browse and buy the latest additions!

New Items – Now in Stock!

  • Deadlock Jailer Ship Collection
  • Deadlock Jailer Costume
  • Deadlock Jailer Weapon Bundle
  • Deadlock Jailer Double Barrel Pistol and Throwing Knives
  • Deadlock Jailer Trinket
  • Crimson Crypt, Lodestar and Dark Warsmith Double Barrel Pistols
  • Shark’s Bane Ship’s Crest
  • Captain’s Head Ship’s Crest
  • Stormfish Chaser Weapon Bundle
  • Stormfish Chaser Ship Collection (returning from Season Ten Plunder Pass)
  • Forest’s Blessing Costume Set (returning from Season Six Plunder Pass)
  • Creeping Cold Costume Set (returning from Season Five Plunder Pass)
  • Presentation Emote Bundle
  • In for the Kill Emote (free!)

Emporium Post-Purchase Recommendations

  • Players purchasing items from the Pirate Emporium will now be shown a recommendation, suggesting similar items they may enjoy and allowing them to fast-track to the suggested offer.

Outpost Cosmetics

New Outpost Stock!

  • The Outpost weapon shops now stock a further range of Heavy Swords and Rapiers from the Seared Forsaken Ashes, Scorched Forsaken Ashes, Parrot, Sunshine Parrot and Nightshine Parrot sets, locked behind their associated Commendations.
  • The Avian Courtly Jacket is also available from the Outpost clothing shops for gold.

Fixed Issues

Gameplay

  • Players joining a crew in progress near a World Event will no longer find themselves appearing on the Ferry of the Damned, and should now arrive as intended at their crew’s ship.
  • Players are no longer able to use a fishing rod while travelling through the air to modify their trajectory.
  • Crews retrieving treasure from on board Skeleton Ships within a Fleet encounter will no longer find those items reappear when a ship resurfaces.
  • Crews clearing out a Siren Shrine or Treasury will now find the rewards are randomised when the location refreshes, preventing players from farming specific items.
  • Players rolling a 20 with the Roll a D20 Emote will now unlock the Critical Roll Commendation.
  • Burying a depleted Ashen Winds Skull will no longer replenish its power when uncovered.
  • Crews defeated in an Hourglass battle will no longer see a low-quality scene before being sent to the Tunnels of the Damned.
  • Captains should no longer be able to place multiple Scourge of the Sea Trinkets aboard their ship.
  • The Captain's Logbook will now consistently appear in the wreckage of a ship defeated in an Hourglass battle.
  • Crews raiding the Treasury Vault of an emergent Sea Fort will no longer find a suite of Order of Souls treasure, and will instead find a more balanced mix.
  • The Eye of Reach now deals the intended amount of damage to Ocean Crawlers in vulnerable or shielded states.
  • Players who have purchased the Parakeet Sea Dog Outfit for their parrot will now see it present in the Pet Chest.
  • ‘The Legend of Monkey Island’ – Time spent playing the Monkey Island Shanty will now be counted in Milestone statistics.

PlayStation®5

  • Players are now able to progress the When You’re a Professional Pirate Trophy by completing Commendations through play on PlayStation®5. Players with prior progress will not unlock this Trophy automatically, and will be required to earn additional Commendations in order to unlock it. Players who believe they may be stuck and unable to progress can raise a support request.
  • Players using game narration will find the account linking flow is now fully narrated.

The War Chest

  • Crew members will now unlock progress towards the Title Fight Commendation when a Skeleton Lord is defeated by another member of the crew.
  • Crew members will now unlock progress towards the Rib Roast Commendation when an Ashen Lord is defeated by another member of the crew.

Throwing Knives

  • Throwing knives hitting a capstan, Ammo Box or Armoury will now disappear and not block player interaction with the object.
  • After throwing a knife, players should now consistently be able to sprint freely without being impeded.
  • Players aiming a throwing knife should no longer feel a stutter when moving.
  • Players will no longer be able to perform a heavy attack and then throw a knife in quick succession when using the throwing knives.
  • Players stowing their throwing knives while charging a heavy attack will no longer retain the charged state when equipping the weapon again.
  • Throwing knives now deal the intended amount of damage to Kraken tentacles.
  • Throwing knives will now behave correctly when dropped off a ship into the water.
  • Throwing a knife and quickly switching weapons should no longer display a knife attached to the player’s hand.
  • Throwing a knife into water now displays the full splash visual effect.
  • Throwing knives lodged in the environment will now glint smoothly when observed while moving around.
  • Throwing knives stuck in the environment will now fade out smoothly when they expire.

Bone Caller

  • Bone Caller Skeletons will no longer appear on a sinking ship, and as a ship sinks any remaining skeletons will be destroyed.
  • During a Kraken encounter, Bone Caller Skeletons will now wait patiently for a threat they can reach.
  • While inside a Siren Treasury, any skeletons remaining when the water level rises will now be destroyed.
  • Bone Caller Skeletons can no longer be summoned in the Pirate Legend Hideout.
  • Bone Caller Skeletons summoned in the Sunken Kingdom will now attack threats on sight and will not wait to be attacked first.

Double Barrel Pistol

  • Players are now able to queue up a charged shot while reloading, so that once the reload is finished the shot begins charging.
  • Players can now consistently reload from Ammo Crates/Pouches after using the Double Barrel Pistol.
  • The Aim Down Sights camera speed is no longer retained after firing a charged shot.
  • Players who are killed while charging a shot will no longer fire the shot upon death.
  • Switching equipment after firing an aimed shot with the Double Barrel Pistol will no longer cause the item to appear in its secondary use state.
  • The Double Barrel Pistol now deals the intended amount of damage to Kraken tentacles and Gold Hoarder Skeletons.
  • The Double Barrel Pistol now deals the intended amount of damage to Ocean Crawlers in vulnerable or shielded states.
  • Firing a charged shot while inside a ship will now play the full firing visual effect.

Horn of Fair Winds

  • The Horn of Fair Winds can now be sold to all Trading Companies for the correct price even when fully depleted.
  • Players standing at the front of a Rowboat can now be pushed back by the Horn of Fair Winds.
  • Burying a depleted Horn of Fair Winds will no longer replenish its power when uncovered.
  • Crews should no longer be able to obtain additional Horns of Fair Winds from the same Sunken Kingdom location in short periods of time.

Pirate Emporium

  • The Toe Reach Emote has now had its price corrected from 249 to 149 Ancient Coins. Players who purchased the emote at the incorrect price will be reimbursed 100 Ancient Coins.
  • The Cutler Beckett Costume Set has now had its price corrected from 599 to 999 Ancient Coins.

Environment

  • Players should no longer be able to see into the environment within The Reaper’s Lair.
  • Volcano eruptions on Devil’s Roar islands should no longer create visual effect issues on the ground.
  • Skeletons will no longer become trapped under the stairs at Keel Haul Fort.
  • Coral Skeletons will no longer become trapped in the scenery in the Shrine of Ancient Tears.
  • Players should no longer find pockets of water missing within the Shrine of the Coral Tomb.

User Interface

  • After transitioning a Guild to a new owner, the Guild leader will now be able to begin making changes and not be required to restart the game.
  • Renown level notifications now display the appropriate Season 12 iconography.
  • The summary details shown in the Reputation tab for each Trading Company now correctly display the number of Titles unlocked.
  • Navigating the Report a Player menus with a mouse and keyboard or controller is now a consistent experience.
  • Tall Tale rewards now correctly fit within their frames when browsing the Quest Table.
  • ‘The Legend of Monkey Island’ – Dialogue options shown during Insult Sword Fighting are now much more responsive.
  • Map markers for completed Tall Tales will now correctly display as unlocked on the ship’s map once completed.

Visual and Audio

  • Players swimming down into the Sunken Kingdom after diving for a Voyage or Hourglass battle will now see the correct atmospheric conditions on their descent.
  • Shooting a ship’s harpoon no longer displays a white hit marker.
  • Looking up at a nearby ship while underwater no longer displays a moving shadow effect on the water’s surface.
  • Several keys have been reduced in size to be consistent and fit properly in players’ hands.
  • When wielding the Stormfish Chaser Blunderbuss, players’ hands will now rest correctly on the weapon.
  • Players should no longer experience visual corruption when sailing through the Maiden Voyage on Xbox One.

Text and Localisation

  • Small increase made to text sizes to improve accessibility within the My Ships flow on the front end.
  • Improvements to test sizes within the Tall Tales section of the Quest Table to resolve overlapping text in non-English languages.
  • The Infinite Depths Weapon Pose Emote now fits neatly within the Emote Radial.

Performance and Stability

  • PC players adjusting resolution scaling will now see a warning that game performance will be affected.
  • Reduced scenarios where players may receive a Hazelnutbeard error following migration to a new server.
  • Further improvements made to game stability to reduce scenarios where players experience an unexpected exit from the game or become disconnected from their session.
Download Size:
Xbox Series X: 12.89 GB
Xbox Series S: 8.02 GB
Xbox One X: 12.89 GB
Xbox One: 8.02 GB
Microsoft Store: 12.21 GB
Steam: 4.4 GB
PlayStation®5: 3.16 GB
submitted by Borsund to Seaofthieves [link] [comments]

2024.05.23 12:29 Tutchando Chapter 7 of Mine - Doll

A dark room, filled with clothes and objects thrown around, held a girl, crying on the floor. Her silky silver hair splattered on the ground, with dirty pinky pajamas. Her tears would fall beneath her eyes, wetting the place with her constant and long cries.
V was afraid, unsure. She didn't know what her love thought of her, but his actions hurt her more than any words. Her sunshine was avoiding her, depraving her of it's vitamins that she so much needed. The memories of his looks at her pierced her chest, they weren't hateful, but terrified. He was afraid of her presence, of her. She, who loved him so much, was being neglected of what should be only hers, by the one himself. This was all that bitch's fault. If that twintailed whore hadn't talked with him, he would never be like this. She corrupted him with her two haired fangs, covincing him to bite that damned misinformation, losing the paradise that was their future. Worst of all, she had hope she'd be able to fix everything after his sister's death. She tried to get close to him, but it didn't work. He never listened to her, prefering to stay silent and never repond or react to anything she did.
V punched the floor in frustation. She couldn't believe she made that mistake, allowing such evil to approach her beloved. She could never let it happen again. She had to protect him from everything, all that could do harm to such perfection, but first, she had to gain his grace again. For that, it's best to just talk with him tomorrow.
The next day, V was standing at the school's entrance, waiting for him. She looked more presentable than her home self, wanting to look good for her sun. In the distance, she could see him walking, although, unlike his old self, he was much more gloomy, wearing a hoodie, hiding his face and sheltering his chest with his body. A sight that hurt V and, unfortunaly, was becoming more common to see. He was getting closer to her, but with no signs of even noticing her presence, so she decided to act.
"Hey N, how's your day?" She cheerfully asked him, waving at the boy, but his steps got quicker and he walked right by her side, not answering her question or even glancing at her. This surprised V, leaving a hole in her chest. She tried to follow him, but her body was frozen, pierced by sadness to the ground.
Wandering eyes watched as she suffered, finding amusement in her reaction.
Time passed, she tried to find him in any place, but it seemed that he had disappeared from school. However, she was sure she would see him on class, he never missed one, no matter what.
When she sat on her place, she smiled, seeing that he really was here, but before she could say anything with him, the teacher entered and V recognized this one, he hated talking in his class, so she decided to wait for the bell to ring once again and this pest to be gone.
The bell was heard by the entire school, meaning this class was finally over. It was a bore, as usual, but now, that the poor excuse of a drone was out of the room, she could finally speak with N. V got up and walked to his chair. He was even more gloomy than in the entrance, he hadn't even spoken to the teacher. His lack of happyness was affecting everyone around him, seeing that everyone seemed less joyful.
"Hey N, can we talk-" Before she could finish, N abruptly got up and walked away from her, going out of the room. Everyone looked at the scene, wondering if the two had a fight, since they used to be so close to each other.
From a chair, the same eyes looked with a faint laughter. It would be easier than it thought.
V didn't try to speak with him in class again. Judging by his mood, he would just repeat the same thing. V could feel a hand grasping her core with force, nearly exploding it. Why did this have to happen to her? She just wants his love, nothing more. She could feel tears wanting to leave her eyes, but she couldn't allow them to ruin her reputation. She had to keep it in. Her home was waiting for her when this ended. There, alone, she could do whatever she wanted.
The bell rings one more time, now, annoucing recess. Everyone got up, including N, and so did V. They all walked to the cafeteria, waiting to get their lunch, with others picking their tables. V followed her love, wanting to sit by his side and have a conversation about everything that is happening. She approached him when he walked out of the food line with his plate.
"So N, how about we-"
"Sorry, can I sit with you guys?" She was once again interrupted, although this time, he talked. His voice sounded horrible, as if any sound produced by his vocal cords hurt his flesh, but this wasn't what worried V the most. He had asked a table full of students she was sure he never even talked to. They looked at him and accepeted. He then sat on their side, leaving no room for her. She could only walk away, tears forming on her eyes, looking for any empty table where she wouldn't be bothered by anyone.
Why was he doing this? She just wanted to talk, clear things out, explain to him that she wasn't a monster he had to fear. Why couldn't he accpet this? She leaned on the table, covering her face from everything else. No, she couldn't blame him. What fault did he have on this? He only fell for lies told by the true monster. She couldn't blame him for being himself, she wanted that, more than anything at the moment.
Hours passed and V didn't try to talk with him again, fearing the worst. She only observed him from afar, watching how his old self was being washed away by the more depressing view of himself. Only if she wasn't so naive. The bell rang one last time. They now had to go back to their houses. If she had any chance to talk with him, it was now.
At the entrance of the main building, everyone was alredy gone. V made sure to pick a time where no one would be around. Maybe he was just shy to talk in front of everyone, she had to think about his side too. He was getting ready to leave, when she decided to confront him.
"N, we need to talk" The boy, who was ready to leave, stopped, however, he didn't look at her "I-I just want to talk about things N, to explain what's happening, so, please, let's talk about everything" She pleaded. His fist clenched, but he gave no response, although, he didn't move either. He was just standing there, listening. He wanted to say something, his body was shaking.
Slowly, he turned to her, his eyes meeting hers, expressing a mic of terror with aggressivness. This made V's look soften. He didn't seem happy to talk with her, but it couldn't be that, he was probably just surprised. He opened his mouth, but no words came out. Although, only this action filled V's core with hope. He's finally going to talk wity her, address her directly once again. She couldn't wait to hear her name on his voice once again.
"I've been following you the whole day" A female voice with a heavy russian accent was heard from behind V. She turned around, seeing a girl, about the same size as Lizzy used to be, with red hair and eyes, wearing the normal school outfit of a white shirt, stamped with the school's name, and dark blue shorts, paired with black boots, carrying an abnormally large dark red backpack. V could faintly remember this girl being one of Lizzy's friends, but she only wondered where she came from? V was sure she had checked every place, making sure there was no one in school other than them "But I finally caught you murder queen"
"Who are you?" V asked with a lifted eyebrown. N closed his mouth and only observed the situation in front of him.
"I'm Doll, one of Lizzy's friends. You know, the one you killed" She said with an angry tone. V narrowed her eyes. How did she know? No, this had to an asumption, there was no way she really knew.
"Oh, please. I didn't kill anyone, so just fuck off will you?" The silver haired girl showed the middle finger to the red haired, just wanting to be over with this pointless discussion and continue her talk with her beloved.
"Oh, I will" Doll said with a smile, putting her backpack on the ground and pulling out an AK-47. V and N's eyes widened at the sight of the gun, however, the boy didn't have enough reflex to escape, different from the girl, who quickly grabbed his wrist and ran to a corner where they wouldn't be hit, just as the russian girl started shooting.
The two silver haired were able to escape any fatal injury, but V noticed that N was clenching his shoulder with force, making small whimpers. She feared the worst, only for her to notice a black liquid squirming through the gap in between his fingers. He had been hit by a bullet.
How dare that bitch! First she attacks her for a fucking assumption, now that whore hurts her beloved!? No, things couldn't be this way. That stupid, demented little slav would feel what was like living in the USSR.
As much as V wanted to lunge on the red haired girl and rip out her organs, she was still firing her gun, but what worried the silver haired the most was that she could guess that Doll was approaching the corner with each second that passed. This was bad, if she reached their location, she doesn't know what to do. She doesn't know how to fight someone with an alredy firing gun, but she had to run out of bullets at some point. That's it, she would strike at that moment.
As if magic, the loud sound of gunshots stopped, but V didn't jump out of her cover yet. She didn't knew if the russian had only stopped or ran out of ammunition, the former being the worst scenario for her and N. So she waited, until, the sound of something falling to the ground echoed to her ears. That's what she wanted to hear, confirmation Doll was reloading, so it was safe to attack.
In one quick movement, V got out of cover and lunged at the russian girl with everything she had, but, after jumping towards her, V noticed that Doll was looking at her with a big smile on her face, as if she wanted that to happen. Before the silver haired pinned her down, she ripped her shirt, revealing mutiple active bombs strapped to her body. N got out of cover, leaning on the wall, looking at the fight scene unfold, unaware of what's going to happen. V brought Doll to the ground, as the russian took a detonator from her pocket.
"Это для Лиззи, сука" She spoke, pressing the button before the femme on top of her could escape.
All the bombs on Doll's body exploded, creating a huge ball of fire that engulfed her body, burning to nothing but a black powder, the only pieces of her remaining being the ones from the corner of her body that were exploded away. The center of the explosion hit half of V's body, burning it completely, but not desmebering her.
Her body was sent flying across the area, hitting a wall close to the corner she was before. The impect against the concrete nearly sent her unconscious, but something inside of her kept her mind running. She fell to the ground, but her vision darted around the place looking for something, no, someone.
N was laying on the gorund, clearly unconscious with a part of his head blown off, oil oozing out of it like a fountain. She started to cry and weakly crawl towards him. When close enough, she hugged his body, giving him a kiss on the forehead, right on the side of the wound.
"Please... Don't die" Was all she said in between cries, before closing her eyes.
submitted by Tutchando to MurderDrones [link] [comments]

2024.05.23 11:51 Marilynnnn A quick orientation for new German language learners who find their way here:

Let me start with a bit of orientation and then continue with our German practice.
I really do try to practice what I preach. I've listened to Nena's Utopia a couple of dozen times. It is really not such a Herculean task because the song is at least 60% instrumental! But still, I can now hear a good 85% of the words. I aim to hear it at that rate with the ears of a native German speaker. And that is the methodology of learning with Nena!
Now, let me introduce you to my partner-in-crime, Andinio (Or Andy for short). My husband Sam and I were Andy's classmates in a few college German courses. We lost touch for decades and bumped into each other about 7 years ago at a pitstop on the New Jersey Turnpike. (Sam passed away a year ago and I have been pretty MIA during this time.)
Andy is about the busiest person I have ever met. He and I also work together at a not-for-profit P-12 education Institute. He doesn't post here a lot but helps with the research.
Above I linked to the post where you can find the music and lyrics to this song as well as some of its background. I hope you enjoy it! Feel free to comment, post, and add personal information if you wish. But try to squeeze in some German the rest of us! I use the website/app "DeepL" to translate from English to German.
Every song has its mysteries we try to unlock here--I will vocabulary, context, and grammar. That's actually the fun. Otherwise I would be hanging out with Duolingo.
In this song, Nena keeps talking about "Metropolis." Andy and I couldn't figure this out. Was this some type of colloquialism that native German speakers naturally use? Andy contacted his German language coach who we will call RU. She responded with this wonderful email which we now share with you.
This refers to the iconic 1927 German black & white silent movie "Metropolis" by Fritz Lange. It features a robot (a woman made from steel). That's what Nena's words "Augen aus Stahl, Seele aus Metall" refers to.
You can read about the movie here and you can watch the entire movie here.
However, the most iconic scene is where the mad scientists transfers Maria into the female robot is between 1:23 hr and 1:25 hr.
I believe the entire song refers to the plot/message of this movie. Otherwise, it wouldn't make sense. Anyway, often Nena's lyrics don't make perfect sense to me.
The translations below are correct, but they may seem void of meaning. My best guess, as I said, is that it refers to the movie and the message of the movie. Hope that helps!
Thank you, RU!
submitted by Marilynnnn to NenaGabrieleKerner [link] [comments]

2024.05.23 11:36 Conqtact Looking for girl name/ anime name

I was scrolling through youtube and found a music video with a gif of this girl but i lost it and its not in my history anymore since it was a while ago She was facing forwards, standing up, had legs spread apart in this pose, and her arms were down. two ponytails, white formal dress with short skirt and can see white shorts. Wind from something blows her clothes and hair but still staying/standing still. I think the description said danmachi but I’ve never seen that scene so far, the closest thing to what i saw was hestia, but i don’t think it is her. Im not sure of the color of the hair. Might be white or grey, those are the closest i think. Thank you!
submitted by Conqtact to anime [link] [comments]

2024.05.23 11:29 air-sushi One answer to why Fourth Wing books has a chokehold on our hearts and minds!

I see many posts that are essentially like “why am I so obsessed?!? what is it about this series? does she put narcotics in these books?!” and I have been wondering the same thing since I finish IF a few weeks ago. Been re-reading via listening to graphic audio (roped my husband into listening with me, massive W he has not read a fictional book maybe ever.) Anyways, we just finished the sparring scene between V and X with the daggers (🥵🌶️) and I was stunned by the details about Tyrrish knots and runes. And then it hit me:
It’s the way RY embeds the romance into the plot and the romance and even spice moves the plot and world building forward, and vice-versa. By itself a lot of the fantasy elements are repeated tropes, the romance elements are repeated tropes (as is a major criticism people make) but as a romantacy it’s simply elite. Three examples of this:
  1. The daggers of course. Runes become such a major plot point later on. The fact that he anticipated that Cat would somehow find a way to irk Violet down the road at this point in the story when they have only kissed once and he seems dead set on putting an end to it. But he is not. He can’t keep away and he knows it and acts in accordance to make her the perfect gift which truly keeps on giving. MY SOUL! 🥺
  2. V’s first training with Carr. When X send’s her that memory of them from the night before it’s fun, flirty, sexy but also “should I get the wingleader?” really establishes Tairin’s character and persona and the nature of his bond with V. Dragons are these formidable kill machines, yet Tairin is like a gossiping bestie who can’t stop teasing his girl for her sexcapades.
  3. My house. My chair. My woman. 🥵🥵🥵 BUT ALSO we go through quick world-building (“are you.. the kind of Tyrrendor?” “Fuck, no. Well yes, technically” lives rent-free in my head) and then we get a major foreshadowing into X’s intinisic powers when he loses control completely. Then they spend a lot of time talking about their relationship issues which helps V work through her own abilities.
The romance and spice are so well integrated into the plot. It’s not like ACTOAR where the main leads have sex and then it’s never relevant to the fantasy elements of the plot after that. Or it’s not like Throne of Glass (which I am halfway through) where there is epic world building but the romance is secondary. RY is telling us a romantacy story where the future of a continent depends on two people’s undeniable, furniture-breaking chemistry and the dragons are in on all the fun. How can it not colonize the hearts and minds of any hopeless romantic??
submitted by air-sushi to fourthwing [link] [comments]

2024.05.23 11:25 _Triple_ [STORE] 900+ KNIVES/GLOVES/SKINS, 100.000$+ INVENTORY. BFK Lore, Gloves Amphibious, Skeleton Fade, Bowie Emerald, BFK Auto, Gloves MF, Talon Doppler, Gloves POW, Bayo Tiger, Gut Sapphire, Stiletto MF, M9 Ultra, Ursus Doppler, Flip Doppler, M9 Stained, Nomad CW, Paracord CW, AK-47 X-Ray & A Lot More

Everything in my inventory is up for trade. The most valuable items are listed here, the rest you can find in My Inventory

Feel free to Add Me or even better send a Trade Offer. Open for any suggestions: upgrades, downgrades / knives, gloves, skins / stickers, patterns, floats.

All Buyouts are listed in cash value.

KNIVES

★ Butterfly Knife Lore (Factory New), B/O: $7194.77

★ Butterfly Knife Autotronic (Minimal Wear), B/O: $2025.74

⎯

★ M9 Bayonet Ultraviolet (Field-Tested), B/O: $557.87

★ M9 Bayonet Stained (Well-Worn), B/O: $529.41

★ M9 Bayonet Boreal Forest (Field-Tested), B/O: $465.39

⎯

★ Talon Knife Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $1295.27

★ Bayonet Tiger Tooth (Minimal Wear), B/O: $746.28

★ Karambit Bright Water (Field-Tested), B/O: $688.15

⎯

★ Flip Knife Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $547.93

★ Flip Knife Autotronic (Minimal Wear), B/O: $476.69

★ Flip Knife Case Hardened (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $278.18

★ Flip Knife Black Laminate (Well-Worn), B/O: $258.83

★ Flip Knife Urban Masked (Field-Tested), B/O: $181.64

⎯

★ Stiletto Knife Marble Fade (Factory New), B/O: $686.04

★ Stiletto Knife Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $665.41

★ Stiletto Knife, B/O: $601.39

★ Stiletto Knife Crimson Web (Field-Tested), B/O: $418.25

★ Stiletto Knife Night Stripe (Field-Tested), B/O: $227.80

★ Stiletto Knife Boreal Forest (Field-Tested), B/O: $194.96

★ Stiletto Knife Safari Mesh (Field-Tested), B/O: $192.79

⎯

★ Nomad Knife Crimson Web (Field-Tested), B/O: $518.11

★ Nomad Knife Scorched (Field-Tested), B/O: $169.78

★ Nomad Knife Forest DDPAT (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $166.88

★ StatTrak™ Nomad Knife Blue Steel (Field-Tested), B/O: $335.79

⎯

★ Skeleton Knife Stained (Well-Worn), B/O: $442.05

★ Skeleton Knife Urban Masked (Minimal Wear), B/O: $426.24

★ Skeleton Knife Boreal Forest (Field-Tested), B/O: $314.03

★ StatTrak™ Skeleton Knife Fade (Minimal Wear), B/O: $2361.28

★ StatTrak™ Skeleton Knife Urban Masked (Field-Tested), B/O: $376.53

⎯

★ Ursus Knife Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $557.12

★ Ursus Knife, B/O: $471.42

★ Ursus Knife Blue Steel (Minimal Wear), B/O: $212.37

★ Ursus Knife Case Hardened (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $187.66

★ Ursus Knife Damascus Steel (Field-Tested), B/O: $178.18

★ Ursus Knife Ultraviolet (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $155.13

★ Ursus Knife Boreal Forest (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $124.26

⎯

★ Huntsman Knife Black Laminate (Minimal Wear), B/O: $204.83

★ Huntsman Knife Black Laminate (Field-Tested), B/O: $184.50

★ StatTrak™ Huntsman Knife Lore (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $224.11

⎯

★ Bowie Knife Gamma Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $2142.02

★ Bowie Knife, B/O: $230.44

★ Bowie Knife Damascus Steel (Factory New), B/O: $209.20

★ Bowie Knife Ultraviolet (Minimal Wear), B/O: $180.51

★ Bowie Knife Ultraviolet (Field-Tested), B/O: $131.03

⎯

★ Falchion Knife Night (Field-Tested), B/O: $132.54

★ Falchion Knife Urban Masked (Well-Worn), B/O: $112.81

★ Falchion Knife Scorched (Field-Tested), B/O: $108.81

★ Falchion Knife Forest DDPAT (Field-Tested), B/O: $107.82

★ Falchion Knife Safari Mesh (Field-Tested), B/O: $107.46

★ StatTrak™ Falchion Knife Ultraviolet (Field-Tested), B/O: $143.08

⎯

★ Paracord Knife Crimson Web (Minimal Wear), B/O: $486.48

★ Paracord Knife Blue Steel (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $163.12

⎯

★ Survival Knife Blue Steel (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $138.26

★ Survival Knife Night Stripe (Field-Tested), B/O: $131.03

⎯

★ Gut Knife Sapphire (Minimal Wear), B/O: $1127.79

★ Gut Knife Gamma Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $286.17

★ Gut Knife Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $246.55

★ Gut Knife Marble Fade (Factory New), B/O: $240.77

★ Gut Knife, B/O: $210.49

★ Gut Knife Lore (Field-Tested), B/O: $194.22

★ Gut Knife Case Hardened (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $151.51

★ Gut Knife Blue Steel (Minimal Wear), B/O: $124.94

★ Gut Knife Rust Coat (Well-Worn), B/O: $118.99

★ Gut Knife Boreal Forest (Minimal Wear), B/O: $109.80

★ StatTrak™ Gut Knife Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $237.96

⎯

★ Shadow Daggers Gamma Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $264.92

★ Shadow Daggers Marble Fade (Factory New), B/O: $253.03

★ Shadow Daggers Tiger Tooth (Factory New), B/O: $237.22

★ Shadow Daggers Crimson Web (Field-Tested), B/O: $153.40

★ Shadow Daggers Autotronic (Minimal Wear), B/O: $144.42

★ Shadow Daggers Blue Steel (Field-Tested), B/O: $105.20

★ StatTrak™ Shadow Daggers Damascus Steel (Minimal Wear), B/O: $150.46

⎯

★ Navaja Knife Fade (Factory New), B/O: $365.99

★ Navaja Knife Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $228.93

★ Navaja Knife Marble Fade (Factory New), B/O: $227.43

★ Navaja Knife Slaughter (Factory New), B/O: $209.06

★ Navaja Knife, B/O: $203.16

★ Navaja Knife Case Hardened (Well-Worn), B/O: $132.57

★ Navaja Knife Damascus Steel (Factory New), B/O: $121.69

★ Navaja Knife Damascus Steel (Minimal Wear), B/O: $109.95

★ Navaja Knife Damascus Steel (Field-Tested), B/O: $100.41

★ StatTrak™ Navaja Knife Fade (Factory New), B/O: $369.01

★ StatTrak™ Navaja Knife Damascus Steel (Field-Tested), B/O: $109.95

GLOVES

★ Sport Gloves Amphibious (Minimal Wear), B/O: $2394.67

★ Sport Gloves Omega (Well-Worn), B/O: $572.33

★ Sport Gloves Bronze Morph (Minimal Wear), B/O: $338.88

★ Sport Gloves Big Game (Field-Tested), B/O: $323.66

⎯

★ Specialist Gloves Marble Fade (Minimal Wear), B/O: $1652.07

★ Specialist Gloves Tiger Strike (Field-Tested), B/O: $599.14

★ Specialist Gloves Crimson Web (Well-Worn), B/O: $231.57

★ Specialist Gloves Buckshot (Minimal Wear), B/O: $126.21

⎯

★ Moto Gloves POW! (Minimal Wear), B/O: $996.99

★ Moto Gloves POW! (Field-Tested), B/O: $383.31

★ Moto Gloves POW! (Well-Worn), B/O: $276.00

★ Moto Gloves Turtle (Field-Tested), B/O: $180.28

⎯

★ Hand Wraps CAUTION! (Minimal Wear), B/O: $502.29

★ Hand Wraps Giraffe (Minimal Wear), B/O: $180.73

★ Hand Wraps CAUTION! (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $178.32

⎯

★ Driver Gloves Queen Jaguar (Minimal Wear), B/O: $181.01

★ Driver Gloves Rezan the Red (Field-Tested), B/O: $101.66

⎯

★ Broken Fang Gloves Jade (Field-Tested), B/O: $127.88

★ Broken Fang Gloves Needle Point (Minimal Wear), B/O: $124.55

⎯

★ Bloodhound Gloves Guerrilla (Minimal Wear), B/O: $127.94

★ Hydra Gloves Case Hardened (Field-Tested), B/O: $102.55

WEAPONS

AK-47 X-Ray (Well-Worn), B/O: $478.95

AUG Hot Rod (Factory New), B/O: $425.83

StatTrak™ M4A1-S Hyper Beast (Factory New), B/O: $413.95

M4A4 Daybreak (Factory New), B/O: $309.51

StatTrak™ AK-47 Aquamarine Revenge (Factory New), B/O: $305.43

AK-47 Case Hardened (Well-Worn), B/O: $196.38

StatTrak™ M4A4 Temukau (Minimal Wear), B/O: $174.64

P90 Run and Hide (Field-Tested), B/O: $167.03

AWP Asiimov (Field-Tested), B/O: $153.33

Souvenir SSG 08 Death Strike (Minimal Wear), B/O: $140.00

M4A1-S Printstream (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $124.70

StatTrak™ M4A1-S Golden Coil (Field-Tested), B/O: $117.48

AWP Asiimov (Well-Worn), B/O: $115.97

StatTrak™ Desert Eagle Printstream (Minimal Wear), B/O: $112.96

StatTrak™ AK-47 Asiimov (Minimal Wear), B/O: $110.85

Souvenir M4A1-S Master Piece (Well-Worn), B/O: $102.42

AK-47 Bloodsport (Minimal Wear), B/O: $100.53

Trade Offer Link - Steam Profile Link - My Inventory

Knives - Bowie Knife, Butterfly Knife, Falchion Knife, Flip Knife, Gut Knife, Huntsman Knife, M9 Bayonet, Bayonet, Karambit, Shadow Daggers, Stiletto Knife, Ursus Knife, Navaja Knife, Talon Knife, Classic Knife, Paracord Knife, Survival Knife, Nomad Knife, Skeleton Knife, Patterns - Gamma Doppler, Doppler (Phase 1, Phase 2, Phase 3, Phase 4, Black Pearl, Sapphire, Ruby, Emerald), Crimson Web, Lore, Fade, Ultraviolet, Night, Marble Fade (Fire & Ice, Fake FI), Case Hardened (Blue Gem), Autotronic, Slaughter, Black Laminate, Tiger Tooth, Boreal Forest, Scorched, Blue Steel, Vanilla, Damascus Steel, Forest DDPAT, Urban Masked, Freehand, Stained, Bright Water, Safari Mesh, Rust Coat, Gloves - Bloodhound Gloves (Charred, Snakebite, Guerrilla, Bronzed), Driver Gloves (Snow Leopard, King Snake, Crimson Weave, Imperial Plaid, Black Tie, Lunar Weave, Diamondback, Rezan the Red, Overtake, Queen Jaguar, Convoy, Racing Green), Hand Wraps (Cobalt Skulls, CAUTION!, Overprint, Slaughter, Leather, Giraffe, Badlands, Spruce DDPAT, Arboreal, Constrictor, Desert Shamagh, Duct Tape), Moto Gloves (Spearmint, POW!, Cool Mint, Smoke Out, Finish Line, Polygon, Blood Pressure, Turtle, Boom!, Eclipse, 3rd Commando Company, Transport), Specialist Gloves (Crimson Kimono, Tiger Strike, Emerald Web, Field Agent, Marble Fade, Fade, Foundation, Lt. Commander, Crimson Web, Mogul, Forest DDPAT, Buckshot), Sport Gloves (Pandora's Box, Superconductor, Hedge Maze, Vice, Amphibious, Slingshot, Omega, Arid, Big Game, Nocts, Scarlet Shamagh, Bronze Morph), Hydra Gloves (Case Hardened, Emerald, Rattler, Mangrove), Broken Fang Gloves (Jade, Yellow-banded, Unhinged, Needle Point), Pistols - P2000 (Wicked Sick, Ocean Foam, Fire Element, Amber Fade, Corticera, Chainmail, Imperial Dragon, Obsidian, Scorpion, Handgun, Acid Etched), USP-S (Printstream, Kill Confirmed, Whiteout, Road Rash, Owergrowth, The Traitor, Neo-Noir, Dark Water, Orion, Blueprint, Stainless, Caiman, Serum, Monster Mashup, Royal Blue, Ancient Visions, Cortex, Orange Anolis, Ticket To Hell, Black Lotus, Cyrex, Check Engine, Guardian, Purple DDPAT, Torque, Blood Tiger, Flashback, Business Class, Pathfinder, Para Green), Lead Conduit, Glock-18 (Ramese's Reach, Umbral Rabbit, Fade, Candy Apple, Bullet Queen, Synth Leaf, Neo-Noir, Nuclear Garden, Dragon Tatto, Reactor, Pink DDPAT, Twilight Galaxy, Sand Dune, Groundwater, Blue Fissure, Snack Attack, Water Elemental, Brass, Wasteland Rebel, Vogue, Franklin, Royal Legion, Gamma Doppler, Weasel, Steel Disruption, Ironwork, Grinder, High Beam, Moonrise, Oxide Blaze, Bunsen Burner, Clear Polymer, Bunsen Burner, Night), P250 (Apep's Curse, Re.built, Nuclear Threat, Modern Hunter, Splash, Whiteout, Vino Primo, Mehndi, Asiimov, Visions, Undertow, Cartel, See Ya Later, Gunsmoke, Splash, Digital Architect, Muertos, Red Rock, Bengal Tiger, Crimson Kimono, Wingshot, Metallic DDPAT, Hive, Dark Filigree, Mint Kimono), Five-Seven (Neon Kimono, Berries And Cherries, Fall Hazard, Crimson Blossom, Hyper Beast, Nitro, Fairy Tale, Case Hardened, Copper Galaxy, Angry Mob, Monkey Business, Fowl Play, Anodized Gunmetal, Hot Shot, Retrobution, Boost Protocol), CZ75-Auto (Chalice, Crimson Web, Emerald Quartz, The Fuschia is Now, Nitro, Xiangliu, Yellow Jacket, Victoria, Poison Dart, Syndicate, Eco, Hexane, Pole, Tigris), Tec-9 (Mummy's Rot, Rebel, Terrace, Nuclear Threat, Hades, Rust Leaf, Decimator, Blast From, Orange Murano, Toxic, Fuel Injector, Remote Control, Bamboo Forest, Isaac, Avalanche, Brother, Re-Entry, Blue Titanium, Bamboozle), R8 Revolver (Banana Cannon, Fade, Blaze, Crimson Web, Liama Cannon, Crazy 8, Reboot, Canal Spray, Night, Amber Fade), Desert Eagle (Blaze, Hand Cannon, Fennec Fox, Sunset Storm, Emerald Jörmungandr, Pilot, Hypnotic, Golden Koi, Printstream, Cobalt Disruption, Code Red, Ocean Drive, Midnight Storm, Kumicho Dragon, Crimson Web, Heirloom, Night Heist, Mecha Industries, Night, Conspiracy, Trigger Discipline, Naga, Directive, Light Rail), Dual Berettas (Flora Carnivora, Duelist, Cobra Strike, Black Limba, Emerald, Hemoglobin, Twin Turbo, Marina, Melondrama, Pyre, Retribution, Briar, Dezastre, Royal Consorts, Urban Shock, Dualing Dragons, Panther, Balance), Rifles - Galil (Aqua Terrace, Winter Forest, Chatterbox, Sugar Rush, Pheonix Blacklight, CAUTION!, Orange DDPAT, Cerberus, Dusk Ruins, Eco, Chromatic Aberration, Stone Cold, Tuxedo, Sandstorm, Shattered, Urban Rubble, Rocket Pop, Kami, Crimson Tsunami, Connexion), SCAR-20 (Fragments, Brass, Cyrex, Palm, Splash Jam, Cardiac, Emerald, Crimson Web, Magna Carta, Stone Mosaico, Bloodsport, Enforcer), AWP (Black Nile, Duality, Gungnir, Dragon Lore, Prince, Medusa, Desert Hydra, Fade, Lightning Strike, Oni Taiji, Silk Tiger, Graphite, Chromatic Aberration, Asiimov, Snake Camo, Boom, Containment Breach, Wildfire, Redline, Electric Hive, Hyper Beast, Neo-Noir, Man-o'-war, Pink DDPAT, Corticera, Sun in Leo, Elite Build, Fever Dream, Atheris, Mortis, PAW, Exoskeleton, Worm God, POP AWP, Phobos, Acheron, Pit Viper, Capillary, Safari Mesh), AK-47 (Steel Delta, Head Shot, Wild Lotus, Gold Arabesque, X-Ray, Fire Serpent, Hydroponic, Panthera Onca, Case Hardened, Vulcan, Jet Set, Fuel Injector, Bloodsport, Nightwish, First Class, Neon Rider, Asiimov, Red Laminate, Aquamarine Revenge, The Empress, Wasteland Rebel, Jaguar, Black Laminate, Leet Museo, Neon Revolution, Redline, Frontside Misty, Predator, Legion of Anubis, Point Disarray, Orbit Mk01, Blue Laminate, Green Laminate, Emerald Pinstripe, Cartel, Phantom Disruptor, Jungle Spray, Safety Net, Rat Rod, Baroque Purple, Slate, Elite Build, Uncharted, Safari Mesh), FAMAS (Waters of Nephthys, Sundown, Prime Conspiracy, Afterimage, Commemoration, Dark Water, Spitfire, Pulse, Eye of Athena, Meltdown, Rapid Eye Move, Roll Cage, Styx, Mecha Industrie, Djinn, ZX Spectron, Valence, Neural Net, Night Borre, Hexne), M4A4 (Eye of Horus, Temukau, Howl, Poseidon, Asiimov, Daybreak, Hellfire, Zirka, Red DDPAT, Radiation Hazard, Modern Hunter, The Emperor, The Coalition, Bullet Rain, Cyber Security, X-Ray, Dark Blossom, Buzz Kill, In Living Color, Neo-Noir, Desolate Space, 龍王 (Dragon King), Royal Paladin, The Battlestar, Global Offensive, Tooth Fairy, Desert-Strike, Griffin, Evil Daimyo, Spider Lily, Converter), M4A1-S (Emphorosaur-S, Welcome to the Jungle, Imminent Danger, Knight, Hot Rod, Icarus Fell, Blue Phosphor, Printstream, Master Piece, Dark Water, Golden Coil, Bright Water, Player Two, Atomic Alloy, Guardian, Chantico's Fire, Hyper Beast, Mecha Industries, Cyrex, Control Panel, Moss Quartz, Nightmare, Decimator, Leaded Glass, Basilisk, Blood Tiger, Briefing, Night Terror, Nitro, VariCamo, Flashback), SG 553 (Cyberforce, Hazard Pay, Bulldozer, Integrale, Dragon Tech, Ultraviolet, Colony IV, Hypnotic, Cyrex, Candy Apple, Barricade, Pulse), SSG 08 (Death Strike, Sea Calico, Blood in the Water, Orange Filigree, Dragonfire, Big Iron, Bloodshot, Detour, Turbo Peek, Red Stone), AUG (Akihabara Accept, Flame Jörmungandr, Hot Rod, Midnight Lily, Sand Storm, Carved Jade, Wings, Anodized Navy, Death by Puppy, Torque, Bengal Tiger, Chameleon, Fleet Flock, Random Access, Momentum, Syd Mead, Stymphalian, Arctic Wolf, Aristocrat, Navy Murano), G3SG1 (Chronos, Violet Murano, Flux, Demeter, Orange Kimono, The Executioner, Green Apple, Arctic Polar Camo, Contractor), SMGs - P90 (ScaraB Rush, Neoqueen, Astral Jörmungandr, Run and Hide, Emerald Dragon, Cold Blooded, Death by Kitty, Baroque Red, Vent Rush, Blind Spot, Asiimov, Trigon, Sunset Lily, Death Grip, Leather, Nostalgia, Fallout Warning, Tiger Pit, Schermatic, Virus, Shapewood, Glacier Mesh, Shallow Grave, Chopper, Desert Warfare), MAC-10 (Sakkaku, Hot Snakes, Copper Borre, Red Filigree, Gold Brick, Graven, Case Hardened, Stalker, Amber Fade, Neon Rider, Tatter, Curse, Propaganda, Nuclear Garden, Disco Tech, Toybox, Heat, Indigo), UMP-45 (Wild Child, Fade, Blaze, Day Lily, Minotaur's Labyrinth, Crime Scene, Caramel, Bone Pile, Momentum, Primal Saber), MP7 (Teal Blossom, Fade, Nemesis, Whiteout, Asterion, Bloosport, Abyssal Apparition, Full Stop, Special Delivery, Neon Ply, Asterion, Ocean Foam, Powercore, Scorched, Impire), PP-Bizon (Modern Hunter, Rust Coat, Forest Leaves, Antique, High Roller, Blue Streak, Seabird, Judgement of Anubis, Bamboo Print, Embargo, Chemical Green, Coblat Halftone, Fuel Rod, Photic Zone, Irradiated Alert, Carbon Fiber), MP9 (Featherweight, Wild Lily, Pandora's Box, Stained Glass, Bulldozer, Dark Age, Hot Rod, Hypnotic, Hydra, Rose Iron, Music Box, Setting Sun, Food Chain, Airlock, Mount Fuji, Starlight Protector, Ruby Poison Dart, Deadly Poison), MP5-SD (Liquidation, Oxide Oasis, Phosphor, Nitro, Agent, Autumn Twilly), Shotguns, Machineguns - Sawed-Off (Kiss♥Love, First Class, Orange DDPAT, Rust Coat, The Kraken, Devourer, Mosaico, Wasteland Princess, Bamboo Shadow, Copper, Serenity, Limelight, Apocalypto), XM1014 (Frost Borre, Ancient Lore, Red Leather, Elegant Vines, Banana Leaf, Jungle, Urban Perforated, Grassland, Blaze Orange, Heaven Guard, VariCamo Blue, Entombed, XOXO, Seasons, Tranquility, Bone Machine, Incinegator, Teclu Burner, Black Tie, Zombie Offensive, Watchdog), Nova (Sobek's Bite, Baroque Orange, Hyper Beast, Green Apple, Antique, Modern Hunter, Walnut, Forest Leaves, Graphite, Blaze Orange, Rising Skull, Tempest, Bloomstick, Interlock, Quick Sand, Moon in Libra, Clean Polymer, Red Quartz, Toy Soldier), MAG-7 (Copper Coated, Insomnia, Cinqueda, Counter Terrace, Prism Terrace, Memento, Chainmail, Hazard, Justice, Bulldozer, Silver, Core Breach, Firestarter, Praetorian, Heat, Hard Water, Monster Call, BI83 Spectrum, SWAG-7), M249 (Humidor, Shipping Forecast, Blizzard Marbleized, Downtown, Jungle DDPAT, Nebula Crusader, Impact Drill, Emerald Poison Dart), Negev (Mjölnir, Anodized Navy, Palm, Power Loader, Bratatat, CaliCamo, Phoenix Stencil, Infrastructure, Boroque Sand), Wear - Factory New (FN), Minimal Wear (MW), Field-Tested (FT), Well-Worn (WW), Battle-Scarred (BS), Stickers Holo/Foil/Gold - Katowice 2014, Krakow 2017, Howling Dawn, Katowice 2015, Crown, London 2018, Cologne 2014, Boston 2018, Atlanta 2017, Cluj-Napoca 2015, DreamHack 2014, King on the Field, Harp of War, Winged Difuser, Cologne 2016, Cologne 2015, MLG Columbus 2016, Katowice 2019, Berlin 2019, RMR 2020, Stockholm 2021, Antwerp 2022, Paris 2023, Swag Foil, Flammable foil, Others - Souvenirs, Agents, Pins, Passes, Gifts, Music Kits, Cases, Keys, Capsules, Packages, Patches

Some items on the list may no longer be available or are still locked, visit My Inventory for more details.

Send a Trade Offer for fastest response. I consider all offers.

Add me for discuss if there is a serious offer that needs to be discussed.

submitted by _Triple_ to GlobalOffensiveTrade [link] [comments]

2024.05.23 11:25 cassiebee808 S3 Episode 3 Rewatch - Fave Scenes!

1) The Innovations Ball Love the music throughout, and it shows Colin's despair so clearly. Colin is just NOT doing well, and he is wrecked by his feelings for Pen. Colin cannot stop staring at Pen, and Violet's advice for him was so sweet. It's clear Violet approves of Pen too, which is great! Lord Debling is definitely noticing Colin's attention towards Pen - in the moment when he asks her to dance, he eyes Colin out and asserts his intentions to be Pen's dance partnesuitor. Also - COLIN YOU CANNOT KISS PEN HERE CALM THYSELF.
2) Balloon Scenes Love the candy colors of this set of scenes! My favorite scenes have to be the Polin scenes in the tent. Colin is so so so jealous, and Luke's hand acting is so incredible here. He clenches his fist when she eludes to Lord Debs being cute, and he's so clearly mad about it LOL. And the Season 1 callback to Daphne and Simon (licking lips with sweets) is so funny - these Bridgertons are out here acting a fool haha. Colin - get away from these bro lords AT ONCE! They SUCK and you deserve better company! His bristling at their comment about Lord Debs having $$ (and obviously title), such good acting. El's uncomfortability being there with Pen and Cressida battling it out was priceless too. SO GOOD.
3) When El tells Pen She Leaked the Secret (about Colin's lessons) This scene was so sad. El wanted to show kindness, and you can tell they are both hurting without each other. This was done so well - very little said but so much behind their eyes. I hope they make up...friend breakups are the WORST.
4) Willow Scene I finally hear the music they played during their first kiss - OMG it's their song!! You can see already here that Colin is down bad and wants an excuse to keep seeing her. Their awkwardness and Colin's sincerity; such a sweet moment.
5) Dream Sequence & Morning Tea I love the dream sequence, but I love the comedy of the morning-after scene even more. Benedict and Hyacinth's comments to Colin, and Colin's awkward responses and hand gestures were sending me. Luke nailed it. He's so so awkward and deserves some flowers for his comedic timing here.
submitted by cassiebee808 to PolinBridgerton [link] [comments]

2024.05.23 11:18 mr_beanoz Favorite action scenes from the opening animation that don't actually happen in the show

I think you might realize it. The anime shows certain scenes where a character fights another, and then you watch the show, only to realize that they don't actually ever fight like how they show it in the opening.
The most evident for me is Naruto, for example I don't think they ever fight a big guy like what you see in the series' first opening.
What are your favorite action scenes (be it a fight, sports match or anything else) from an anime's opening that don't actually happen in the show?
submitted by mr_beanoz to anime [link] [comments]

2024.05.23 10:56 Erutious Makaro House

“This is Jay, Moody, and Kai, and today we are searching for Makaro House.”
The video was shot in shaky cam, the footage hard to watch without getting a little seasick. Officer Wiley, Detective Wiley now, had seen a lot in his time on the force, but a double homicide perpetrated by this fourteen-year-old kid in front of him was something he hoped he would never see. A double homicide, and carried out against two of his best friends, at that. The two kids in question, Marshal Moody and Kai Dillon, had been friends with Jason Weeks since elementary school, and there had never been any reports of violence or any other alarming behavior, at least none reported to the police. The boys had operated a YouTube channel, JMK Occult, for the last two years, and while their content was pretty typical for kids online, they had been uploading steadily every week since their first video about a strange deer in the North Woods around Cadderly.
Hell, Wiley even watched their stuff sometimes when he was bored.
People in the community knew them, and this was out of character for any of them.
Wiley paused the video, the three boys blundering through the South Woods and chattering like a pack of squirrels, and looked at Jason.
Jason, Jay to his friends, looked like he had aged a decade. He had a gaunt look usually reserved for soldiers who come back from war. His hair had been long and blonde for as long as anyone had known him, but the kid sitting here now was as bald as an egg and his scalp looked scoured instead of shaved. The shirt he had been wearing in the video was gone. He was still wearing the ring of it around his neck, the stretched fabric like a collar, and the jeans he wore were stained and ragged in places that looked fresh. He'd been found with no shoes or socks, but he was wearing the orange flip-flops of a jail resident now.
Wiley knew his parents wanted to bail him out, but he wasn't sure if the judge was going to extend him bail or not, given the nature of his crime.
The way those kids had been ripped apart was something that would haunt him for a long time.
“So, Jason, Officer Russel tells me that someone picked you up beside the road and you told them that your friends were dead and that you had killed them. Is that true?”
Jason nodded, not speaking a word as he continued to stare at the wall.
The woman in question was Darla Hughes, a mother of three who had stopped when she saw a young teenage boy walking on the side of the road in the state he was currently in. Stories of kidnapping and kids held in basements for months while God knew what happened to them were clear in the public consciousness. Darla thought she had found some kid who had escaped his situation, and when she stopped to help him, she said the poor lamb had said eight words and then nothing else.
“He said, my friends are dead, and I killed them.”
They had found the kids in a clearing in the woods about three miles in, a site he was familiar with.
How many times had he and his friends gone looking for the Makaro House?
Everyone in Cadderly knew about Makaro House, and most people's childhoods had been spent looking for it. John Makaro, a prominent figure in Cadderly's history, had been a prominent importer and exporter in England. He had come to America before the Revolutionary War to try to set up a similar business here, and Cadderly had been a large enough port to satisfy his needs without being so big that a new face would be lost. He established a manor in the South Woods, despite being told that it was Indian Land, and the bill of sale did very little to dispatch the native tribe that was living there. He survived two raids by the natives somehow, but his wife and daughter were not so lucky the second time. As such, he rallied a mob of townspeople to go into the woods and help him flush out the natives who were living there. The raid took weeks, but by the end, they had killed or scattered every member of the tribe that lived there.
Satisfied, Mr. Makaro built his lavish estates there, but strange things surrounded it from the first. Workers went missing, people reported strange lights and sounds after dark, and a shriveled figure in skins and feathers could be seen lurking after moonrise. Animals on the property acted strangely, and sometimes people found wolves or bears on the grounds. Usually, they were in a rage, but sometimes they simply fled as if they had been drawn there and weren't sure what to do now that they were. Once the house was finished, John Makaro had a hard time keeping staff. None of the hands he had hired to keep his livestock would stay more than a week, and they all refused to stay on the property after dark. His servants would likewise disappear suddenly, and none of them would stay at night besides his butler, who had been with him for years. People said that Mr. Makaro talked about hearing chanting in the house and seeing strange shadows, and when even his butler disappeared one evening, John locked the doors and stayed in the house alone for a long time. People who came to see him said he could be seen wandering the halls like a ghost, calling out for people only he could see.
When his mansion was seen in full blaze one night, those who were first on the scene said they saw a lone man silhouetted in the flames, his feathers and skins on full display.
He disappeared when they got close, but he had been seen by many in the years to come.
“What did you see out there, Jason?”
Jason continued to stare at the wall.
“I wanna help you, kid, but you have to help yourself first.”
He couldn't help but glance down at the kid's fingers as he left them splayed on that table like sleeping spiders. The nails were dirty, the beds crusty with something like blood, and several of them were torn and ragged. There was grime around his mouth too, and Wiley would have bet his next paycheck that it wasn't a Kool-aid ring. It looked like mud or paint, but it was probably blood.
Jason remained silent as the grave.
“Jason, none of us believe that you killed your friends. You,”
“You're wrong,”
Wiley had been fiddling with the remote, trying not to look at the kid's hands, but when he spoke, he looked up. Jason was still staring at the wall, but his head was shaking as his teeth chattered together. The kid looked like he was staring into the mouth of hell instead of the creme-colored wall of the interrogation room. Wiley almost didn't want to ask him what he had seen, but he needed to know. He needed to know how this kid had killed two other kids, one of whom was bigger than him by a head and sixty pounds.
“Would you like to elaborate?” Wiley asked.
He didn't think the kid would for a minute, but finally, he just reached slowly and pushed play on the remote. He kept looking at Wiley like he thought he might slap his hand, but when he let him get all the way across the table unsmacked, he relaxed a little. The video went on as they walked through the woods, joking and laughing as the woods lived their quiet existence around them.
“We went in at eight, just after Kai's mom went to work. She wouldn't have liked us going into the South Woods, but we wanted to investigate Makaro House. We wanted to do it for our first episode, but Moody said it was something we should work up to. The Makaro House was something big, and we needed to be ready for it. Turned out we weren't.”
On the screen, the kids kept walking through the woods, checking their compass and making their way carefully through the thick brush. They were still chattering, talking about what they might find when they got there, and whether they would find the clearing or see the mysterious mansion that people talked about sometimes. Legend said that a ghostly manor appeared in the clearing sometimes, the ghost of the house and that people who went inside were never seen again. Wiley didn't believe that, but as a kid, he had to admit that the clearing where the house had sat was spooky. All the wood had long ago rotted, the stones taken away for use in other things, but the land just felt wrong. Wiley had never been there after dark, but people claimed to hear footsteps and see things after the sun went down.
Wiley pushed fast forward on the tape and watched as the kids plodded on and on.
Jason wished that he could have sped through that part of the trip.
They had set out at eight, waving to Kai's mom as she pulled out of the driveway. The packs had been pulled out of the garage after she was down the road a piece, and the three set out for the woods. They knew the rough direction of the Makaro House, but no one really came upon it in the same way. Danny Foster had said it was a three-mile walk from the forest's edge to the property, but Jamie had claimed that he and his friends had walked for what seemed like hours.
“When we found it, though,” he said, “we found the house instead of an empty lot. We kept daring each other to go in, but we left when someone lit a fire on the grounds.”
Jason and his friends were hoping to find the house instead of the lot, and as their walk turned into a hike, Kai stopped and looked at the compass.
“We should have gotten there by now.”
Moody chuckled, “Maybe we're going in the wrong direction.”
“Can't be,” Kai protested, “The directions are to go south into the south woods for three miles. Then you'll come to the clearing where Makaro House once sat.”
Jason didn't want to jinx it, but at the time he thought that boded well for them finding the house.
They kept walking, Kai good for an endless stream of conversation, and as the sun began to set, Jason found he was out of breath. His tongue felt like leather as it stuck to the roof of his mouth, and the lunch they had brought had been eaten hours ago. Moody had argued that they should turn around and head back, but Jason had finally vocalized that this could mean they were going to find the house instead of an empty lot.
He was hopeful right until they got what they wanted
When the sun began to go down, Wiley knit his brows together.
“I thought you and your friends were only in the woods for a few hours?”
Jason shook his head slowly, “We were, and we weren't. The time on the camera says we walked for eight hours before I turned it off, but when I got picked up by the side of the road, it was barely noon.”
Wiley pursed his lips, “How is that possible?”
The video cut out, the battery in the camera having been exhausted, and Jason nodded at the screen.
“Those batteries have a max life of three hours. Dad said it was the best battery they had when he ordered it for me, and it was pretty expensive. There's no way one of those batteries could have recorded for eight hours, but it did.”
The recording came back on, and Wiley was shocked to see that they were standing on the lawn of an old Gothic mansion. The sun setting behind the house made a perfect backdrop for the shot, and the boys were oooing and ahhing appreciatively. None of them seemed to believe what they were seeing, the whole thing a little otherworldly, and there seemed to be some argument about who was going to approach the house first.
“Is that,” Wiley stopped to wet his lips,” it can't be. The Makaro House burned down hundreds of years ago.”
“But there it is,” Jason said, his eyes still fixed on the wall, “in all its glory.”
And oh, what glory there had been in it.
Moody had gawped at the house as he had never seen one before.
“No way, there is no way.”
“That's impossible,” Kai breathed, “that house burned to the ground before our father's fathers were even thought of.”
“But there it is,” Jason said, mirroring his later statement, though he could not know it, “in all its glory.”
As the sun set behind it, Jason thought it looked even spookier than it would at night. The mansion rose like an obelisk towards the sky, its towered roofs looking naked without flags or pinions. The boys stood at the edge, trying to shame or bluster one of the others into going there first, but in the end, Jason took the first step. The others looked surprised at his boldness, but they followed closely after, not wanting to be thought less of.
Jason expected the house to disintegrate as he approached, an illusion or a trick of the light, but as his foot came to rest on the boards of the old house, he felt their solidity and continued to climb.
When the doors opened for them, the broad double doors swinging jauntily on their hinges, the three boys pulled back as they prepared to run.
The camera captured their indecision, the portal yawning wide as it waited to receive them, and Jason seemed to surprise even himself as he came forward to investigate it.
“Jason, What if it's a trap?”
“This whole place shouldn't exist, and if you think I'm going to pass up the chance to explore it, you're wrong."
Jason went in, pausing just inside the doors as if waiting for them to crash shut.
When they didn't, Moody followed him and Kai brought up the rear.
Makaro House lived up to its Gothic exterior, the inside full of soft dark velvet and antique furniture. There was a fire burning in the hearth inside the sitting room, tables spread with books in the library, and as they came up the long hall that led towards what was undoubtedly a dining room, Jason began to smell something. It was something like a stew or maybe a roast, and the smell of meat brought them to the dining room. A long table sat in the middle, eight chairs on each side of it, and at the end sat a wrinkled old man eating soup from a bowl.
It was hard to tell before they had gotten close, but the old man looked like he might be Native American. He was dressed in hides, feathers adorning his head and necklace, and he wore a beaded necklace with bones and claws on it. He looked up as they approached, glowering at them evenly, before returning to his meal. He ignored the boys, all three standing back apprehensively before Jason found the courage to speak.
“Excuse me, sir. Is this your house?”
The spoon froze on the way to his mouth, and the old man looked like he'd been slapped.
“My house?” he asked, his voice sounding thin and whispery, “No, child, but it was paid for by my people. We paid with our blood, we paid with our lives, and in the end, the cost was high. I took some of that cost from the previous owner of this home, and now it's only me who lives here.”
Kai made an uncomfortable noise in his throat, like a dog trying to tell its owner that something wasn't safe, and Jason understood the feeling.
“Well, we'll leave you to it then. We didn't mean to,”
“Leave?” the old man said, sounding amused, “oh no. No one leaves Makaro House until they've played the game. It was always a way for our warriors to test their metal, and I have so longed to see it played again. Will you join me? If not, I'm afraid you might find it quite hard to leave.”
Moody took a step back, and Jason heard his heavy footsteps on the carpet as he tried to retreat.
“What's the game?” Jason asked, figuring they could outrun this old coyote if it came down to it.
Jason would wonder why he had thought of him that way, but he didn't have time to ponder it then.
“Choose your piece from my necklace,” the old man said, slipping it off and laying it on the table, “Claw, Talon, or Fang.”
“Then what?” Moody asked, Kai moving behind him as if afraid to come too close.
“Then we start the game.” the old man said, smiling toothily.
For an old man, he certainly had a lot of sharp teeth.
“Okay,” Moody said, walking forward as Kai followed in his wake, “I choose claw.”
“Talon,” said Kai, reaching out to touch it.
“Fang,” said Jason, and as he put his hand out, he felt a sudden, violent shifting in his guts.
He was shrinking, the world moving rapidly all around him. He was smaller, but also more than he was, and he was trapped. His legs scrabbled at the thing that held him, and he tore it to pieces as he freed himself. He heard a loud roar and something big rose up before him. The bear was massive, ragged bits of something hanging from him, and Jason was afraid that he would kill him before he could get fully free of his snare. Something screeched then, flying at the bear's face and attacking him. Jason saw blood run down the snout of the bear, and as it tried to get the bird, a large hawk, off its face, Jason circled and looked for an opening. He was low, on all fours, and he could smell the hot blood as it coursed down the bear's muzzle. Blood and meat and fear and desire mingled in him, and as something laughed, he turned and saw a large coyote sitting at the table. Its grin was huge, its snout longer than any snout had a right to be, and he was laughing in a strange half-animal/half-man way.
The hawk suddenly fell before Jason, twitching and gasping as it died, and he knew the time to strike was now.
Jason leaped on the bear, its arms trying to crush him but not able to find purchase. He sank his teeth into the bear's throat, and for a moment he was afraid he wouldn't make it through all that thick fur. The bear tried to bring its claws to bear, but as the wolf worried at it with its fangs, he was rewarded with a mouth full of hot blood. The bear kept trying to rake him with its claws, but its movements were becoming less coordinated. When it fell, the whole room shook with the sound of its thunder, and Jason rolled off it as it lay still.
“Bravo, bravo,” cried the coyote, clapping its paws together in celebration, “Well fought, young wolf, well fought.”
Jason took a step towards him, but suddenly he was falling. It was as if a whirlpool had opened up beneath him and he was being sucked into it. Jason thrashed and snarled, trying to get his balance, but he was powerless against the pull as it flung him down and into the depths of some strange and terrible abyss.
He came to in the empty clearing where the house had been, and that was where he found his friends.
Wiley rewound the tape, not quite sure what to make of this.
“So this strange man offered to play a game, and then he changed you three into animals?”
Jason nodded, looking like one of those birds that dip into a glass of water, “I picked Fang, so I was the wolf. The game wasn't fair, we didn't know what we were doing, but I still killed Moody. I killed both of them because I had been the one to approach the house first. I killed them when I agreed to play the game. It's my fault, I'm a murderer.”
Wiley wasn't so sure, but it was hard to argue with the evidence. The video showed Jason dropping the camera and then suddenly there was a lot of snarling and screeching. Wiley heard the animals fighting, but he heard something else too. Something was laughing, really having a good belly chuckle, and it sounded like a hyena. He couldn't see it, it was all lost amongst the carpet, but suddenly that carpet had turned into grass, and the camera was lying outside in the midday sun. Someone got up, someone sobbed and moaned out in negation, and then they walked away.
That was where the video ended.
In the end, Jason was sent for psychiatric evaluation and the whole thing was chalked up to a drug-induced episode. Jason and his friends were drugged by an old man in the woods and while under the influence of an unknown substance, a substance that didn't show up on any toxicology screening, they killed each other. Blood was found on Jason, blood belonging to Marshall Moody, but blood from the fingernails of Moody was determined to belong to Kai Dillon, which really helped push the narrative that Detective Wiley was working with. He told the press to report an old man in the woods who was drugging people and pushed the stranger danger talks a little harder than usual that year on school visits.
After that day, the tape he took from Jason Weeks was never seen again, but Wiley believed that the boys had run up against something they weren't prepared for. When John Makaro had led the extermination of the Native People that dwelt on his land, he had angered something he wasn't prepared for either. Wiley's grandmother had liked to tell stories about Coyote, the trickster god, and how he could be as fierce as he was cunning when he needed to be. Wiley didn't think they would ever find an old man out there in the woods, but he didn't doubt others would find him.
Coyote liked his games, especially when the players were people he saw as interlopers.
Makaro House remained a town legend, and Wiley had little doubt that those foolish enough to enter would be presented with the same game these three boys had been given.
Wiley shuddered to think how the next challenge might go when Coyote needed more amusement.
submitted by Erutious to TalesOfDarkness [link] [comments]

2024.05.23 10:55 Erutious Makaro House

“This is Jay, Moody, and Kai, and today we are searching for Makaro House.”
The video was shot in shaky cam, the footage hard to watch without getting a little seasick. Officer Wiley, Detective Wiley now, had seen a lot in his time on the force, but a double homicide perpetrated by this fourteen-year-old kid in front of him was something he hoped he would never see. A double homicide, and carried out against two of his best friends, at that. The two kids in question, Marshal Moody and Kai Dillon, had been friends with Jason Weeks since elementary school, and there had never been any reports of violence or any other alarming behavior, at least none reported to the police. The boys had operated a YouTube channel, JMK Occult, for the last two years, and while their content was pretty typical for kids online, they had been uploading steadily every week since their first video about a strange deer in the North Woods around Cadderly.
Hell, Wiley even watched their stuff sometimes when he was bored.
People in the community knew them, and this was out of character for any of them.
Wiley paused the video, the three boys blundering through the South Woods and chattering like a pack of squirrels, and looked at Jason.
Jason, Jay to his friends, looked like he had aged a decade. He had a gaunt look usually reserved for soldiers who come back from war. His hair had been long and blonde for as long as anyone had known him, but the kid sitting here now was as bald as an egg and his scalp looked scoured instead of shaved. The shirt he had been wearing in the video was gone. He was still wearing the ring of it around his neck, the stretched fabric like a collar, and the jeans he wore were stained and ragged in places that looked fresh. He'd been found with no shoes or socks, but he was wearing the orange flip-flops of a jail resident now.
Wiley knew his parents wanted to bail him out, but he wasn't sure if the judge was going to extend him bail or not, given the nature of his crime.
The way those kids had been ripped apart was something that would haunt him for a long time.
“So, Jason, Officer Russel tells me that someone picked you up beside the road and you told them that your friends were dead and that you had killed them. Is that true?”
Jason nodded, not speaking a word as he continued to stare at the wall.
The woman in question was Darla Hughes, a mother of three who had stopped when she saw a young teenage boy walking on the side of the road in the state he was currently in. Stories of kidnapping and kids held in basements for months while God knew what happened to them were clear in the public consciousness. Darla thought she had found some kid who had escaped his situation, and when she stopped to help him, she said the poor lamb had said eight words and then nothing else.
“He said, my friends are dead, and I killed them.”
They had found the kids in a clearing in the woods about three miles in, a site he was familiar with.
How many times had he and his friends gone looking for the Makaro House?
Everyone in Cadderly knew about Makaro House, and most people's childhoods had been spent looking for it. John Makaro, a prominent figure in Cadderly's history, had been a prominent importer and exporter in England. He had come to America before the Revolutionary War to try to set up a similar business here, and Cadderly had been a large enough port to satisfy his needs without being so big that a new face would be lost. He established a manor in the South Woods, despite being told that it was Indian Land, and the bill of sale did very little to dispatch the native tribe that was living there. He survived two raids by the natives somehow, but his wife and daughter were not so lucky the second time. As such, he rallied a mob of townspeople to go into the woods and help him flush out the natives who were living there. The raid took weeks, but by the end, they had killed or scattered every member of the tribe that lived there.
Satisfied, Mr. Makaro built his lavish estates there, but strange things surrounded it from the first. Workers went missing, people reported strange lights and sounds after dark, and a shriveled figure in skins and feathers could be seen lurking after moonrise. Animals on the property acted strangely, and sometimes people found wolves or bears on the grounds. Usually, they were in a rage, but sometimes they simply fled as if they had been drawn there and weren't sure what to do now that they were. Once the house was finished, John Makaro had a hard time keeping staff. None of the hands he had hired to keep his livestock would stay more than a week, and they all refused to stay on the property after dark. His servants would likewise disappear suddenly, and none of them would stay at night besides his butler, who had been with him for years. People said that Mr. Makaro talked about hearing chanting in the house and seeing strange shadows, and when even his butler disappeared one evening, John locked the doors and stayed in the house alone for a long time. People who came to see him said he could be seen wandering the halls like a ghost, calling out for people only he could see.
When his mansion was seen in full blaze one night, those who were first on the scene said they saw a lone man silhouetted in the flames, his feathers and skins on full display.
He disappeared when they got close, but he had been seen by many in the years to come.
“What did you see out there, Jason?”
Jason continued to stare at the wall.
“I wanna help you, kid, but you have to help yourself first.”
He couldn't help but glance down at the kid's fingers as he left them splayed on that table like sleeping spiders. The nails were dirty, the beds crusty with something like blood, and several of them were torn and ragged. There was grime around his mouth too, and Wiley would have bet his next paycheck that it wasn't a Kool-aid ring. It looked like mud or paint, but it was probably blood.
Jason remained silent as the grave.
“Jason, none of us believe that you killed your friends. You,”
“You're wrong,”
Wiley had been fiddling with the remote, trying not to look at the kid's hands, but when he spoke, he looked up. Jason was still staring at the wall, but his head was shaking as his teeth chattered together. The kid looked like he was staring into the mouth of hell instead of the creme-colored wall of the interrogation room. Wiley almost didn't want to ask him what he had seen, but he needed to know. He needed to know how this kid had killed two other kids, one of whom was bigger than him by a head and sixty pounds.
“Would you like to elaborate?” Wiley asked.
He didn't think the kid would for a minute, but finally, he just reached slowly and pushed play on the remote. He kept looking at Wiley like he thought he might slap his hand, but when he let him get all the way across the table unsmacked, he relaxed a little. The video went on as they walked through the woods, joking and laughing as the woods lived their quiet existence around them.
“We went in at eight, just after Kai's mom went to work. She wouldn't have liked us going into the South Woods, but we wanted to investigate Makaro House. We wanted to do it for our first episode, but Moody said it was something we should work up to. The Makaro House was something big, and we needed to be ready for it. Turned out we weren't.”
On the screen, the kids kept walking through the woods, checking their compass and making their way carefully through the thick brush. They were still chattering, talking about what they might find when they got there, and whether they would find the clearing or see the mysterious mansion that people talked about sometimes. Legend said that a ghostly manor appeared in the clearing sometimes, the ghost of the house and that people who went inside were never seen again. Wiley didn't believe that, but as a kid, he had to admit that the clearing where the house had sat was spooky. All the wood had long ago rotted, the stones taken away for use in other things, but the land just felt wrong. Wiley had never been there after dark, but people claimed to hear footsteps and see things after the sun went down.
Wiley pushed fast forward on the tape and watched as the kids plodded on and on.
Jason wished that he could have sped through that part of the trip.
They had set out at eight, waving to Kai's mom as she pulled out of the driveway. The packs had been pulled out of the garage after she was down the road a piece, and the three set out for the woods. They knew the rough direction of the Makaro House, but no one really came upon it in the same way. Danny Foster had said it was a three-mile walk from the forest's edge to the property, but Jamie had claimed that he and his friends had walked for what seemed like hours.
“When we found it, though,” he said, “we found the house instead of an empty lot. We kept daring each other to go in, but we left when someone lit a fire on the grounds.”
Jason and his friends were hoping to find the house instead of the lot, and as their walk turned into a hike, Kai stopped and looked at the compass.
“We should have gotten there by now.”
Moody chuckled, “Maybe we're going in the wrong direction.”
“Can't be,” Kai protested, “The directions are to go south into the south woods for three miles. Then you'll come to the clearing where Makaro House once sat.”
Jason didn't want to jinx it, but at the time he thought that boded well for them finding the house.
They kept walking, Kai good for an endless stream of conversation, and as the sun began to set, Jason found he was out of breath. His tongue felt like leather as it stuck to the roof of his mouth, and the lunch they had brought had been eaten hours ago. Moody had argued that they should turn around and head back, but Jason had finally vocalized that this could mean they were going to find the house instead of an empty lot.
He was hopeful right until they got what they wanted
When the sun began to go down, Wiley knit his brows together.
“I thought you and your friends were only in the woods for a few hours?”
Jason shook his head slowly, “We were, and we weren't. The time on the camera says we walked for eight hours before I turned it off, but when I got picked up by the side of the road, it was barely noon.”
Wiley pursed his lips, “How is that possible?”
The video cut out, the battery in the camera having been exhausted, and Jason nodded at the screen.
“Those batteries have a max life of three hours. Dad said it was the best battery they had when he ordered it for me, and it was pretty expensive. There's no way one of those batteries could have recorded for eight hours, but it did.”
The recording came back on, and Wiley was shocked to see that they were standing on the lawn of an old Gothic mansion. The sun setting behind the house made a perfect backdrop for the shot, and the boys were oooing and ahhing appreciatively. None of them seemed to believe what they were seeing, the whole thing a little otherworldly, and there seemed to be some argument about who was going to approach the house first.
“Is that,” Wiley stopped to wet his lips,” it can't be. The Makaro House burned down hundreds of years ago.”
“But there it is,” Jason said, his eyes still fixed on the wall, “in all its glory.”
And oh, what glory there had been in it.
Moody had gawped at the house as he had never seen one before.
“No way, there is no way.”
“That's impossible,” Kai breathed, “that house burned to the ground before our father's fathers were even thought of.”
“But there it is,” Jason said, mirroring his later statement, though he could not know it, “in all its glory.”
As the sun set behind it, Jason thought it looked even spookier than it would at night. The mansion rose like an obelisk towards the sky, its towered roofs looking naked without flags or pinions. The boys stood at the edge, trying to shame or bluster one of the others into going there first, but in the end, Jason took the first step. The others looked surprised at his boldness, but they followed closely after, not wanting to be thought less of.
Jason expected the house to disintegrate as he approached, an illusion or a trick of the light, but as his foot came to rest on the boards of the old house, he felt their solidity and continued to climb.
When the doors opened for them, the broad double doors swinging jauntily on their hinges, the three boys pulled back as they prepared to run.
The camera captured their indecision, the portal yawning wide as it waited to receive them, and Jason seemed to surprise even himself as he came forward to investigate it.
“Jason, What if it's a trap?”
“This whole place shouldn't exist, and if you think I'm going to pass up the chance to explore it, you're wrong."
Jason went in, pausing just inside the doors as if waiting for them to crash shut.
When they didn't, Moody followed him and Kai brought up the rear.
Makaro House lived up to its Gothic exterior, the inside full of soft dark velvet and antique furniture. There was a fire burning in the hearth inside the sitting room, tables spread with books in the library, and as they came up the long hall that led towards what was undoubtedly a dining room, Jason began to smell something. It was something like a stew or maybe a roast, and the smell of meat brought them to the dining room. A long table sat in the middle, eight chairs on each side of it, and at the end sat a wrinkled old man eating soup from a bowl.
It was hard to tell before they had gotten close, but the old man looked like he might be Native American. He was dressed in hides, feathers adorning his head and necklace, and he wore a beaded necklace with bones and claws on it. He looked up as they approached, glowering at them evenly, before returning to his meal. He ignored the boys, all three standing back apprehensively before Jason found the courage to speak.
“Excuse me, sir. Is this your house?”
The spoon froze on the way to his mouth, and the old man looked like he'd been slapped.
“My house?” he asked, his voice sounding thin and whispery, “No, child, but it was paid for by my people. We paid with our blood, we paid with our lives, and in the end, the cost was high. I took some of that cost from the previous owner of this home, and now it's only me who lives here.”
Kai made an uncomfortable noise in his throat, like a dog trying to tell its owner that something wasn't safe, and Jason understood the feeling.
“Well, we'll leave you to it then. We didn't mean to,”
“Leave?” the old man said, sounding amused, “oh no. No one leaves Makaro House until they've played the game. It was always a way for our warriors to test their metal, and I have so longed to see it played again. Will you join me? If not, I'm afraid you might find it quite hard to leave.”
Moody took a step back, and Jason heard his heavy footsteps on the carpet as he tried to retreat.
“What's the game?” Jason asked, figuring they could outrun this old coyote if it came down to it.
Jason would wonder why he had thought of him that way, but he didn't have time to ponder it then.
“Choose your piece from my necklace,” the old man said, slipping it off and laying it on the table, “Claw, Talon, or Fang.”
“Then what?” Moody asked, Kai moving behind him as if afraid to come too close.
“Then we start the game.” the old man said, smiling toothily.
For an old man, he certainly had a lot of sharp teeth.
“Okay,” Moody said, walking forward as Kai followed in his wake, “I choose claw.”
“Talon,” said Kai, reaching out to touch it.
“Fang,” said Jason, and as he put his hand out, he felt a sudden, violent shifting in his guts.
He was shrinking, the world moving rapidly all around him. He was smaller, but also more than he was, and he was trapped. His legs scrabbled at the thing that held him, and he tore it to pieces as he freed himself. He heard a loud roar and something big rose up before him. The bear was massive, ragged bits of something hanging from him, and Jason was afraid that he would kill him before he could get fully free of his snare. Something screeched then, flying at the bear's face and attacking him. Jason saw blood run down the snout of the bear, and as it tried to get the bird, a large hawk, off its face, Jason circled and looked for an opening. He was low, on all fours, and he could smell the hot blood as it coursed down the bear's muzzle. Blood and meat and fear and desire mingled in him, and as something laughed, he turned and saw a large coyote sitting at the table. Its grin was huge, its snout longer than any snout had a right to be, and he was laughing in a strange half-animal/half-man way.
The hawk suddenly fell before Jason, twitching and gasping as it died, and he knew the time to strike was now.
Jason leaped on the bear, its arms trying to crush him but not able to find purchase. He sank his teeth into the bear's throat, and for a moment he was afraid he wouldn't make it through all that thick fur. The bear tried to bring its claws to bear, but as the wolf worried at it with its fangs, he was rewarded with a mouth full of hot blood. The bear kept trying to rake him with its claws, but its movements were becoming less coordinated. When it fell, the whole room shook with the sound of its thunder, and Jason rolled off it as it lay still.
“Bravo, bravo,” cried the coyote, clapping its paws together in celebration, “Well fought, young wolf, well fought.”
Jason took a step towards him, but suddenly he was falling. It was as if a whirlpool had opened up beneath him and he was being sucked into it. Jason thrashed and snarled, trying to get his balance, but he was powerless against the pull as it flung him down and into the depths of some strange and terrible abyss.
He came to in the empty clearing where the house had been, and that was where he found his friends.
Wiley rewound the tape, not quite sure what to make of this.
“So this strange man offered to play a game, and then he changed you three into animals?”
Jason nodded, looking like one of those birds that dip into a glass of water, “I picked Fang, so I was the wolf. The game wasn't fair, we didn't know what we were doing, but I still killed Moody. I killed both of them because I had been the one to approach the house first. I killed them when I agreed to play the game. It's my fault, I'm a murderer.”
Wiley wasn't so sure, but it was hard to argue with the evidence. The video showed Jason dropping the camera and then suddenly there was a lot of snarling and screeching. Wiley heard the animals fighting, but he heard something else too. Something was laughing, really having a good belly chuckle, and it sounded like a hyena. He couldn't see it, it was all lost amongst the carpet, but suddenly that carpet had turned into grass, and the camera was lying outside in the midday sun. Someone got up, someone sobbed and moaned out in negation, and then they walked away.
That was where the video ended.
In the end, Jason was sent for psychiatric evaluation and the whole thing was chalked up to a drug-induced episode. Jason and his friends were drugged by an old man in the woods and while under the influence of an unknown substance, a substance that didn't show up on any toxicology screening, they killed each other. Blood was found on Jason, blood belonging to Marshall Moody, but blood from the fingernails of Moody was determined to belong to Kai Dillon, which really helped push the narrative that Detective Wiley was working with. He told the press to report an old man in the woods who was drugging people and pushed the stranger danger talks a little harder than usual that year on school visits.
After that day, the tape he took from Jason Weeks was never seen again, but Wiley believed that the boys had run up against something they weren't prepared for. When John Makaro had led the extermination of the Native People that dwelt on his land, he had angered something he wasn't prepared for either. Wiley's grandmother had liked to tell stories about Coyote, the trickster god, and how he could be as fierce as he was cunning when he needed to be. Wiley didn't think they would ever find an old man out there in the woods, but he didn't doubt others would find him.
Coyote liked his games, especially when the players were people he saw as interlopers.
Makaro House remained a town legend, and Wiley had little doubt that those foolish enough to enter would be presented with the same game these three boys had been given.
Wiley shuddered to think how the next challenge might go when Coyote needed more amusement.
submitted by Erutious to stayawake [link] [comments]

2024.05.23 10:55 Erutious Makaro House

“This is Jay, Moody, and Kai, and today we are searching for Makaro House.”
The video was shot in shaky cam, the footage hard to watch without getting a little seasick. Officer Wiley, Detective Wiley now, had seen a lot in his time on the force, but a double homicide perpetrated by this fourteen-year-old kid in front of him was something he hoped he would never see. A double homicide, and carried out against two of his best friends, at that. The two kids in question, Marshal Moody and Kai Dillon, had been friends with Jason Weeks since elementary school, and there had never been any reports of violence or any other alarming behavior, at least none reported to the police. The boys had operated a YouTube channel, JMK Occult, for the last two years, and while their content was pretty typical for kids online, they had been uploading steadily every week since their first video about a strange deer in the North Woods around Cadderly.
Hell, Wiley even watched their stuff sometimes when he was bored.
People in the community knew them, and this was out of character for any of them.
Wiley paused the video, the three boys blundering through the South Woods and chattering like a pack of squirrels, and looked at Jason.
Jason, Jay to his friends, looked like he had aged a decade. He had a gaunt look usually reserved for soldiers who come back from war. His hair had been long and blonde for as long as anyone had known him, but the kid sitting here now was as bald as an egg and his scalp looked scoured instead of shaved. The shirt he had been wearing in the video was gone. He was still wearing the ring of it around his neck, the stretched fabric like a collar, and the jeans he wore were stained and ragged in places that looked fresh. He'd been found with no shoes or socks, but he was wearing the orange flip-flops of a jail resident now.
Wiley knew his parents wanted to bail him out, but he wasn't sure if the judge was going to extend him bail or not, given the nature of his crime.
The way those kids had been ripped apart was something that would haunt him for a long time.
“So, Jason, Officer Russel tells me that someone picked you up beside the road and you told them that your friends were dead and that you had killed them. Is that true?”
Jason nodded, not speaking a word as he continued to stare at the wall.
The woman in question was Darla Hughes, a mother of three who had stopped when she saw a young teenage boy walking on the side of the road in the state he was currently in. Stories of kidnapping and kids held in basements for months while God knew what happened to them were clear in the public consciousness. Darla thought she had found some kid who had escaped his situation, and when she stopped to help him, she said the poor lamb had said eight words and then nothing else.
“He said, my friends are dead, and I killed them.”
They had found the kids in a clearing in the woods about three miles in, a site he was familiar with.
How many times had he and his friends gone looking for the Makaro House?
Everyone in Cadderly knew about Makaro House, and most people's childhoods had been spent looking for it. John Makaro, a prominent figure in Cadderly's history, had been a prominent importer and exporter in England. He had come to America before the Revolutionary War to try to set up a similar business here, and Cadderly had been a large enough port to satisfy his needs without being so big that a new face would be lost. He established a manor in the South Woods, despite being told that it was Indian Land, and the bill of sale did very little to dispatch the native tribe that was living there. He survived two raids by the natives somehow, but his wife and daughter were not so lucky the second time. As such, he rallied a mob of townspeople to go into the woods and help him flush out the natives who were living there. The raid took weeks, but by the end, they had killed or scattered every member of the tribe that lived there.
Satisfied, Mr. Makaro built his lavish estates there, but strange things surrounded it from the first. Workers went missing, people reported strange lights and sounds after dark, and a shriveled figure in skins and feathers could be seen lurking after moonrise. Animals on the property acted strangely, and sometimes people found wolves or bears on the grounds. Usually, they were in a rage, but sometimes they simply fled as if they had been drawn there and weren't sure what to do now that they were. Once the house was finished, John Makaro had a hard time keeping staff. None of the hands he had hired to keep his livestock would stay more than a week, and they all refused to stay on the property after dark. His servants would likewise disappear suddenly, and none of them would stay at night besides his butler, who had been with him for years. People said that Mr. Makaro talked about hearing chanting in the house and seeing strange shadows, and when even his butler disappeared one evening, John locked the doors and stayed in the house alone for a long time. People who came to see him said he could be seen wandering the halls like a ghost, calling out for people only he could see.
When his mansion was seen in full blaze one night, those who were first on the scene said they saw a lone man silhouetted in the flames, his feathers and skins on full display.
He disappeared when they got close, but he had been seen by many in the years to come.
“What did you see out there, Jason?”
Jason continued to stare at the wall.
“I wanna help you, kid, but you have to help yourself first.”
He couldn't help but glance down at the kid's fingers as he left them splayed on that table like sleeping spiders. The nails were dirty, the beds crusty with something like blood, and several of them were torn and ragged. There was grime around his mouth too, and Wiley would have bet his next paycheck that it wasn't a Kool-aid ring. It looked like mud or paint, but it was probably blood.
Jason remained silent as the grave.
“Jason, none of us believe that you killed your friends. You,”
“You're wrong,”
Wiley had been fiddling with the remote, trying not to look at the kid's hands, but when he spoke, he looked up. Jason was still staring at the wall, but his head was shaking as his teeth chattered together. The kid looked like he was staring into the mouth of hell instead of the creme-colored wall of the interrogation room. Wiley almost didn't want to ask him what he had seen, but he needed to know. He needed to know how this kid had killed two other kids, one of whom was bigger than him by a head and sixty pounds.
“Would you like to elaborate?” Wiley asked.
He didn't think the kid would for a minute, but finally, he just reached slowly and pushed play on the remote. He kept looking at Wiley like he thought he might slap his hand, but when he let him get all the way across the table unsmacked, he relaxed a little. The video went on as they walked through the woods, joking and laughing as the woods lived their quiet existence around them.
“We went in at eight, just after Kai's mom went to work. She wouldn't have liked us going into the South Woods, but we wanted to investigate Makaro House. We wanted to do it for our first episode, but Moody said it was something we should work up to. The Makaro House was something big, and we needed to be ready for it. Turned out we weren't.”
On the screen, the kids kept walking through the woods, checking their compass and making their way carefully through the thick brush. They were still chattering, talking about what they might find when they got there, and whether they would find the clearing or see the mysterious mansion that people talked about sometimes. Legend said that a ghostly manor appeared in the clearing sometimes, the ghost of the house and that people who went inside were never seen again. Wiley didn't believe that, but as a kid, he had to admit that the clearing where the house had sat was spooky. All the wood had long ago rotted, the stones taken away for use in other things, but the land just felt wrong. Wiley had never been there after dark, but people claimed to hear footsteps and see things after the sun went down.
Wiley pushed fast forward on the tape and watched as the kids plodded on and on.
Jason wished that he could have sped through that part of the trip.
They had set out at eight, waving to Kai's mom as she pulled out of the driveway. The packs had been pulled out of the garage after she was down the road a piece, and the three set out for the woods. They knew the rough direction of the Makaro House, but no one really came upon it in the same way. Danny Foster had said it was a three-mile walk from the forest's edge to the property, but Jamie had claimed that he and his friends had walked for what seemed like hours.
“When we found it, though,” he said, “we found the house instead of an empty lot. We kept daring each other to go in, but we left when someone lit a fire on the grounds.”
Jason and his friends were hoping to find the house instead of the lot, and as their walk turned into a hike, Kai stopped and looked at the compass.
“We should have gotten there by now.”
Moody chuckled, “Maybe we're going in the wrong direction.”
“Can't be,” Kai protested, “The directions are to go south into the south woods for three miles. Then you'll come to the clearing where Makaro House once sat.”
Jason didn't want to jinx it, but at the time he thought that boded well for them finding the house.
They kept walking, Kai good for an endless stream of conversation, and as the sun began to set, Jason found he was out of breath. His tongue felt like leather as it stuck to the roof of his mouth, and the lunch they had brought had been eaten hours ago. Moody had argued that they should turn around and head back, but Jason had finally vocalized that this could mean they were going to find the house instead of an empty lot.
He was hopeful right until they got what they wanted
When the sun began to go down, Wiley knit his brows together.
“I thought you and your friends were only in the woods for a few hours?”
Jason shook his head slowly, “We were, and we weren't. The time on the camera says we walked for eight hours before I turned it off, but when I got picked up by the side of the road, it was barely noon.”
Wiley pursed his lips, “How is that possible?”
The video cut out, the battery in the camera having been exhausted, and Jason nodded at the screen.
“Those batteries have a max life of three hours. Dad said it was the best battery they had when he ordered it for me, and it was pretty expensive. There's no way one of those batteries could have recorded for eight hours, but it did.”
The recording came back on, and Wiley was shocked to see that they were standing on the lawn of an old Gothic mansion. The sun setting behind the house made a perfect backdrop for the shot, and the boys were oooing and ahhing appreciatively. None of them seemed to believe what they were seeing, the whole thing a little otherworldly, and there seemed to be some argument about who was going to approach the house first.
“Is that,” Wiley stopped to wet his lips,” it can't be. The Makaro House burned down hundreds of years ago.”
“But there it is,” Jason said, his eyes still fixed on the wall, “in all its glory.”
And oh, what glory there had been in it.
Moody had gawped at the house as he had never seen one before.
“No way, there is no way.”
“That's impossible,” Kai breathed, “that house burned to the ground before our father's fathers were even thought of.”
“But there it is,” Jason said, mirroring his later statement, though he could not know it, “in all its glory.”
As the sun set behind it, Jason thought it looked even spookier than it would at night. The mansion rose like an obelisk towards the sky, its towered roofs looking naked without flags or pinions. The boys stood at the edge, trying to shame or bluster one of the others into going there first, but in the end, Jason took the first step. The others looked surprised at his boldness, but they followed closely after, not wanting to be thought less of.
Jason expected the house to disintegrate as he approached, an illusion or a trick of the light, but as his foot came to rest on the boards of the old house, he felt their solidity and continued to climb.
When the doors opened for them, the broad double doors swinging jauntily on their hinges, the three boys pulled back as they prepared to run.
The camera captured their indecision, the portal yawning wide as it waited to receive them, and Jason seemed to surprise even himself as he came forward to investigate it.
“Jason, What if it's a trap?”
“This whole place shouldn't exist, and if you think I'm going to pass up the chance to explore it, you're wrong."
Jason went in, pausing just inside the doors as if waiting for them to crash shut.
When they didn't, Moody followed him and Kai brought up the rear.
Makaro House lived up to its Gothic exterior, the inside full of soft dark velvet and antique furniture. There was a fire burning in the hearth inside the sitting room, tables spread with books in the library, and as they came up the long hall that led towards what was undoubtedly a dining room, Jason began to smell something. It was something like a stew or maybe a roast, and the smell of meat brought them to the dining room. A long table sat in the middle, eight chairs on each side of it, and at the end sat a wrinkled old man eating soup from a bowl.
It was hard to tell before they had gotten close, but the old man looked like he might be Native American. He was dressed in hides, feathers adorning his head and necklace, and he wore a beaded necklace with bones and claws on it. He looked up as they approached, glowering at them evenly, before returning to his meal. He ignored the boys, all three standing back apprehensively before Jason found the courage to speak.
“Excuse me, sir. Is this your house?”
The spoon froze on the way to his mouth, and the old man looked like he'd been slapped.
“My house?” he asked, his voice sounding thin and whispery, “No, child, but it was paid for by my people. We paid with our blood, we paid with our lives, and in the end, the cost was high. I took some of that cost from the previous owner of this home, and now it's only me who lives here.”
Kai made an uncomfortable noise in his throat, like a dog trying to tell its owner that something wasn't safe, and Jason understood the feeling.
“Well, we'll leave you to it then. We didn't mean to,”
“Leave?” the old man said, sounding amused, “oh no. No one leaves Makaro House until they've played the game. It was always a way for our warriors to test their metal, and I have so longed to see it played again. Will you join me? If not, I'm afraid you might find it quite hard to leave.”
Moody took a step back, and Jason heard his heavy footsteps on the carpet as he tried to retreat.
“What's the game?” Jason asked, figuring they could outrun this old coyote if it came down to it.
Jason would wonder why he had thought of him that way, but he didn't have time to ponder it then.
“Choose your piece from my necklace,” the old man said, slipping it off and laying it on the table, “Claw, Talon, or Fang.”
“Then what?” Moody asked, Kai moving behind him as if afraid to come too close.
“Then we start the game.” the old man said, smiling toothily.
For an old man, he certainly had a lot of sharp teeth.
“Okay,” Moody said, walking forward as Kai followed in his wake, “I choose claw.”
“Talon,” said Kai, reaching out to touch it.
“Fang,” said Jason, and as he put his hand out, he felt a sudden, violent shifting in his guts.
He was shrinking, the world moving rapidly all around him. He was smaller, but also more than he was, and he was trapped. His legs scrabbled at the thing that held him, and he tore it to pieces as he freed himself. He heard a loud roar and something big rose up before him. The bear was massive, ragged bits of something hanging from him, and Jason was afraid that he would kill him before he could get fully free of his snare. Something screeched then, flying at the bear's face and attacking him. Jason saw blood run down the snout of the bear, and as it tried to get the bird, a large hawk, off its face, Jason circled and looked for an opening. He was low, on all fours, and he could smell the hot blood as it coursed down the bear's muzzle. Blood and meat and fear and desire mingled in him, and as something laughed, he turned and saw a large coyote sitting at the table. Its grin was huge, its snout longer than any snout had a right to be, and he was laughing in a strange half-animal/half-man way.
The hawk suddenly fell before Jason, twitching and gasping as it died, and he knew the time to strike was now.
Jason leaped on the bear, its arms trying to crush him but not able to find purchase. He sank his teeth into the bear's throat, and for a moment he was afraid he wouldn't make it through all that thick fur. The bear tried to bring its claws to bear, but as the wolf worried at it with its fangs, he was rewarded with a mouth full of hot blood. The bear kept trying to rake him with its claws, but its movements were becoming less coordinated. When it fell, the whole room shook with the sound of its thunder, and Jason rolled off it as it lay still.
“Bravo, bravo,” cried the coyote, clapping its paws together in celebration, “Well fought, young wolf, well fought.”
Jason took a step towards him, but suddenly he was falling. It was as if a whirlpool had opened up beneath him and he was being sucked into it. Jason thrashed and snarled, trying to get his balance, but he was powerless against the pull as it flung him down and into the depths of some strange and terrible abyss.
He came to in the empty clearing where the house had been, and that was where he found his friends.
Wiley rewound the tape, not quite sure what to make of this.
“So this strange man offered to play a game, and then he changed you three into animals?”
Jason nodded, looking like one of those birds that dip into a glass of water, “I picked Fang, so I was the wolf. The game wasn't fair, we didn't know what we were doing, but I still killed Moody. I killed both of them because I had been the one to approach the house first. I killed them when I agreed to play the game. It's my fault, I'm a murderer.”
Wiley wasn't so sure, but it was hard to argue with the evidence. The video showed Jason dropping the camera and then suddenly there was a lot of snarling and screeching. Wiley heard the animals fighting, but he heard something else too. Something was laughing, really having a good belly chuckle, and it sounded like a hyena. He couldn't see it, it was all lost amongst the carpet, but suddenly that carpet had turned into grass, and the camera was lying outside in the midday sun. Someone got up, someone sobbed and moaned out in negation, and then they walked away.
That was where the video ended.
In the end, Jason was sent for psychiatric evaluation and the whole thing was chalked up to a drug-induced episode. Jason and his friends were drugged by an old man in the woods and while under the influence of an unknown substance, a substance that didn't show up on any toxicology screening, they killed each other. Blood was found on Jason, blood belonging to Marshall Moody, but blood from the fingernails of Moody was determined to belong to Kai Dillon, which really helped push the narrative that Detective Wiley was working with. He told the press to report an old man in the woods who was drugging people and pushed the stranger danger talks a little harder than usual that year on school visits.
After that day, the tape he took from Jason Weeks was never seen again, but Wiley believed that the boys had run up against something they weren't prepared for. When John Makaro had led the extermination of the Native People that dwelt on his land, he had angered something he wasn't prepared for either. Wiley's grandmother had liked to tell stories about Coyote, the trickster god, and how he could be as fierce as he was cunning when he needed to be. Wiley didn't think they would ever find an old man out there in the woods, but he didn't doubt others would find him.
Coyote liked his games, especially when the players were people he saw as interlopers.
Makaro House remained a town legend, and Wiley had little doubt that those foolish enough to enter would be presented with the same game these three boys had been given.
Wiley shuddered to think how the next challenge might go when Coyote needed more amusement.
submitted by Erutious to spooky_stories [link] [comments]

2024.05.23 10:54 Erutious Makaro House

“This is Jay, Moody, and Kai, and today we are searching for Makaro House.”
The video was shot in shaky cam, the footage hard to watch without getting a little seasick. Officer Wiley, Detective Wiley now, had seen a lot in his time on the force, but a double homicide perpetrated by this fourteen-year-old kid in front of him was something he hoped he would never see. A double homicide, and carried out against two of his best friends, at that. The two kids in question, Marshal Moody and Kai Dillon, had been friends with Jason Weeks since elementary school, and there had never been any reports of violence or any other alarming behavior, at least none reported to the police. The boys had operated a YouTube channel, JMK Occult, for the last two years, and while their content was pretty typical for kids online, they had been uploading steadily every week since their first video about a strange deer in the North Woods around Cadderly.
Hell, Wiley even watched their stuff sometimes when he was bored.
People in the community knew them, and this was out of character for any of them.
Wiley paused the video, the three boys blundering through the South Woods and chattering like a pack of squirrels, and looked at Jason.
Jason, Jay to his friends, looked like he had aged a decade. He had a gaunt look usually reserved for soldiers who come back from war. His hair had been long and blonde for as long as anyone had known him, but the kid sitting here now was as bald as an egg and his scalp looked scoured instead of shaved. The shirt he had been wearing in the video was gone. He was still wearing the ring of it around his neck, the stretched fabric like a collar, and the jeans he wore were stained and ragged in places that looked fresh. He'd been found with no shoes or socks, but he was wearing the orange flip-flops of a jail resident now.
Wiley knew his parents wanted to bail him out, but he wasn't sure if the judge was going to extend him bail or not, given the nature of his crime.
The way those kids had been ripped apart was something that would haunt him for a long time.
“So, Jason, Officer Russel tells me that someone picked you up beside the road and you told them that your friends were dead and that you had killed them. Is that true?”
Jason nodded, not speaking a word as he continued to stare at the wall.
The woman in question was Darla Hughes, a mother of three who had stopped when she saw a young teenage boy walking on the side of the road in the state he was currently in. Stories of kidnapping and kids held in basements for months while God knew what happened to them were clear in the public consciousness. Darla thought she had found some kid who had escaped his situation, and when she stopped to help him, she said the poor lamb had said eight words and then nothing else.
“He said, my friends are dead, and I killed them.”
They had found the kids in a clearing in the woods about three miles in, a site he was familiar with.
How many times had he and his friends gone looking for the Makaro House?
Everyone in Cadderly knew about Makaro House, and most people's childhoods had been spent looking for it. John Makaro, a prominent figure in Cadderly's history, had been a prominent importer and exporter in England. He had come to America before the Revolutionary War to try to set up a similar business here, and Cadderly had been a large enough port to satisfy his needs without being so big that a new face would be lost. He established a manor in the South Woods, despite being told that it was Indian Land, and the bill of sale did very little to dispatch the native tribe that was living there. He survived two raids by the natives somehow, but his wife and daughter were not so lucky the second time. As such, he rallied a mob of townspeople to go into the woods and help him flush out the natives who were living there. The raid took weeks, but by the end, they had killed or scattered every member of the tribe that lived there.
Satisfied, Mr. Makaro built his lavish estates there, but strange things surrounded it from the first. Workers went missing, people reported strange lights and sounds after dark, and a shriveled figure in skins and feathers could be seen lurking after moonrise. Animals on the property acted strangely, and sometimes people found wolves or bears on the grounds. Usually, they were in a rage, but sometimes they simply fled as if they had been drawn there and weren't sure what to do now that they were. Once the house was finished, John Makaro had a hard time keeping staff. None of the hands he had hired to keep his livestock would stay more than a week, and they all refused to stay on the property after dark. His servants would likewise disappear suddenly, and none of them would stay at night besides his butler, who had been with him for years. People said that Mr. Makaro talked about hearing chanting in the house and seeing strange shadows, and when even his butler disappeared one evening, John locked the doors and stayed in the house alone for a long time. People who came to see him said he could be seen wandering the halls like a ghost, calling out for people only he could see.
When his mansion was seen in full blaze one night, those who were first on the scene said they saw a lone man silhouetted in the flames, his feathers and skins on full display.
He disappeared when they got close, but he had been seen by many in the years to come.
“What did you see out there, Jason?”
Jason continued to stare at the wall.
“I wanna help you, kid, but you have to help yourself first.”
He couldn't help but glance down at the kid's fingers as he left them splayed on that table like sleeping spiders. The nails were dirty, the beds crusty with something like blood, and several of them were torn and ragged. There was grime around his mouth too, and Wiley would have bet his next paycheck that it wasn't a Kool-aid ring. It looked like mud or paint, but it was probably blood.
Jason remained silent as the grave.
“Jason, none of us believe that you killed your friends. You,”
“You're wrong,”
Wiley had been fiddling with the remote, trying not to look at the kid's hands, but when he spoke, he looked up. Jason was still staring at the wall, but his head was shaking as his teeth chattered together. The kid looked like he was staring into the mouth of hell instead of the creme-colored wall of the interrogation room. Wiley almost didn't want to ask him what he had seen, but he needed to know. He needed to know how this kid had killed two other kids, one of whom was bigger than him by a head and sixty pounds.
“Would you like to elaborate?” Wiley asked.
He didn't think the kid would for a minute, but finally, he just reached slowly and pushed play on the remote. He kept looking at Wiley like he thought he might slap his hand, but when he let him get all the way across the table unsmacked, he relaxed a little. The video went on as they walked through the woods, joking and laughing as the woods lived their quiet existence around them.
“We went in at eight, just after Kai's mom went to work. She wouldn't have liked us going into the South Woods, but we wanted to investigate Makaro House. We wanted to do it for our first episode, but Moody said it was something we should work up to. The Makaro House was something big, and we needed to be ready for it. Turned out we weren't.”
On the screen, the kids kept walking through the woods, checking their compass and making their way carefully through the thick brush. They were still chattering, talking about what they might find when they got there, and whether they would find the clearing or see the mysterious mansion that people talked about sometimes. Legend said that a ghostly manor appeared in the clearing sometimes, the ghost of the house and that people who went inside were never seen again. Wiley didn't believe that, but as a kid, he had to admit that the clearing where the house had sat was spooky. All the wood had long ago rotted, the stones taken away for use in other things, but the land just felt wrong. Wiley had never been there after dark, but people claimed to hear footsteps and see things after the sun went down.
Wiley pushed fast forward on the tape and watched as the kids plodded on and on.
Jason wished that he could have sped through that part of the trip.
They had set out at eight, waving to Kai's mom as she pulled out of the driveway. The packs had been pulled out of the garage after she was down the road a piece, and the three set out for the woods. They knew the rough direction of the Makaro House, but no one really came upon it in the same way. Danny Foster had said it was a three-mile walk from the forest's edge to the property, but Jamie had claimed that he and his friends had walked for what seemed like hours.
“When we found it, though,” he said, “we found the house instead of an empty lot. We kept daring each other to go in, but we left when someone lit a fire on the grounds.”
Jason and his friends were hoping to find the house instead of the lot, and as their walk turned into a hike, Kai stopped and looked at the compass.
“We should have gotten there by now.”
Moody chuckled, “Maybe we're going in the wrong direction.”
“Can't be,” Kai protested, “The directions are to go south into the south woods for three miles. Then you'll come to the clearing where Makaro House once sat.”
Jason didn't want to jinx it, but at the time he thought that boded well for them finding the house.
They kept walking, Kai good for an endless stream of conversation, and as the sun began to set, Jason found he was out of breath. His tongue felt like leather as it stuck to the roof of his mouth, and the lunch they had brought had been eaten hours ago. Moody had argued that they should turn around and head back, but Jason had finally vocalized that this could mean they were going to find the house instead of an empty lot.
He was hopeful right until they got what they wanted
When the sun began to go down, Wiley knit his brows together.
“I thought you and your friends were only in the woods for a few hours?”
Jason shook his head slowly, “We were, and we weren't. The time on the camera says we walked for eight hours before I turned it off, but when I got picked up by the side of the road, it was barely noon.”
Wiley pursed his lips, “How is that possible?”
The video cut out, the battery in the camera having been exhausted, and Jason nodded at the screen.
“Those batteries have a max life of three hours. Dad said it was the best battery they had when he ordered it for me, and it was pretty expensive. There's no way one of those batteries could have recorded for eight hours, but it did.”
The recording came back on, and Wiley was shocked to see that they were standing on the lawn of an old Gothic mansion. The sun setting behind the house made a perfect backdrop for the shot, and the boys were oooing and ahhing appreciatively. None of them seemed to believe what they were seeing, the whole thing a little otherworldly, and there seemed to be some argument about who was going to approach the house first.
“Is that,” Wiley stopped to wet his lips,” it can't be. The Makaro House burned down hundreds of years ago.”
“But there it is,” Jason said, his eyes still fixed on the wall, “in all its glory.”
And oh, what glory there had been in it.
Moody had gawped at the house as he had never seen one before.
“No way, there is no way.”
“That's impossible,” Kai breathed, “that house burned to the ground before our father's fathers were even thought of.”
“But there it is,” Jason said, mirroring his later statement, though he could not know it, “in all its glory.”
As the sun set behind it, Jason thought it looked even spookier than it would at night. The mansion rose like an obelisk towards the sky, its towered roofs looking naked without flags or pinions. The boys stood at the edge, trying to shame or bluster one of the others into going there first, but in the end, Jason took the first step. The others looked surprised at his boldness, but they followed closely after, not wanting to be thought less of.
Jason expected the house to disintegrate as he approached, an illusion or a trick of the light, but as his foot came to rest on the boards of the old house, he felt their solidity and continued to climb.
When the doors opened for them, the broad double doors swinging jauntily on their hinges, the three boys pulled back as they prepared to run.
The camera captured their indecision, the portal yawning wide as it waited to receive them, and Jason seemed to surprise even himself as he came forward to investigate it.
“Jason, What if it's a trap?”
“This whole place shouldn't exist, and if you think I'm going to pass up the chance to explore it, you're wrong."
Jason went in, pausing just inside the doors as if waiting for them to crash shut.
When they didn't, Moody followed him and Kai brought up the rear.
Makaro House lived up to its Gothic exterior, the inside full of soft dark velvet and antique furniture. There was a fire burning in the hearth inside the sitting room, tables spread with books in the library, and as they came up the long hall that led towards what was undoubtedly a dining room, Jason began to smell something. It was something like a stew or maybe a roast, and the smell of meat brought them to the dining room. A long table sat in the middle, eight chairs on each side of it, and at the end sat a wrinkled old man eating soup from a bowl.
It was hard to tell before they had gotten close, but the old man looked like he might be Native American. He was dressed in hides, feathers adorning his head and necklace, and he wore a beaded necklace with bones and claws on it. He looked up as they approached, glowering at them evenly, before returning to his meal. He ignored the boys, all three standing back apprehensively before Jason found the courage to speak.
“Excuse me, sir. Is this your house?”
The spoon froze on the way to his mouth, and the old man looked like he'd been slapped.
“My house?” he asked, his voice sounding thin and whispery, “No, child, but it was paid for by my people. We paid with our blood, we paid with our lives, and in the end, the cost was high. I took some of that cost from the previous owner of this home, and now it's only me who lives here.”
Kai made an uncomfortable noise in his throat, like a dog trying to tell its owner that something wasn't safe, and Jason understood the feeling.
“Well, we'll leave you to it then. We didn't mean to,”
“Leave?” the old man said, sounding amused, “oh no. No one leaves Makaro House until they've played the game. It was always a way for our warriors to test their metal, and I have so longed to see it played again. Will you join me? If not, I'm afraid you might find it quite hard to leave.”
Moody took a step back, and Jason heard his heavy footsteps on the carpet as he tried to retreat.
“What's the game?” Jason asked, figuring they could outrun this old coyote if it came down to it.
Jason would wonder why he had thought of him that way, but he didn't have time to ponder it then.
“Choose your piece from my necklace,” the old man said, slipping it off and laying it on the table, “Claw, Talon, or Fang.”
“Then what?” Moody asked, Kai moving behind him as if afraid to come too close.
“Then we start the game.” the old man said, smiling toothily.
For an old man, he certainly had a lot of sharp teeth.
“Okay,” Moody said, walking forward as Kai followed in his wake, “I choose claw.”
“Talon,” said Kai, reaching out to touch it.
“Fang,” said Jason, and as he put his hand out, he felt a sudden, violent shifting in his guts.
He was shrinking, the world moving rapidly all around him. He was smaller, but also more than he was, and he was trapped. His legs scrabbled at the thing that held him, and he tore it to pieces as he freed himself. He heard a loud roar and something big rose up before him. The bear was massive, ragged bits of something hanging from him, and Jason was afraid that he would kill him before he could get fully free of his snare. Something screeched then, flying at the bear's face and attacking him. Jason saw blood run down the snout of the bear, and as it tried to get the bird, a large hawk, off its face, Jason circled and looked for an opening. He was low, on all fours, and he could smell the hot blood as it coursed down the bear's muzzle. Blood and meat and fear and desire mingled in him, and as something laughed, he turned and saw a large coyote sitting at the table. Its grin was huge, its snout longer than any snout had a right to be, and he was laughing in a strange half-animal/half-man way.
The hawk suddenly fell before Jason, twitching and gasping as it died, and he knew the time to strike was now.
Jason leaped on the bear, its arms trying to crush him but not able to find purchase. He sank his teeth into the bear's throat, and for a moment he was afraid he wouldn't make it through all that thick fur. The bear tried to bring its claws to bear, but as the wolf worried at it with its fangs, he was rewarded with a mouth full of hot blood. The bear kept trying to rake him with its claws, but its movements were becoming less coordinated. When it fell, the whole room shook with the sound of its thunder, and Jason rolled off it as it lay still.
“Bravo, bravo,” cried the coyote, clapping its paws together in celebration, “Well fought, young wolf, well fought.”
Jason took a step towards him, but suddenly he was falling. It was as if a whirlpool had opened up beneath him and he was being sucked into it. Jason thrashed and snarled, trying to get his balance, but he was powerless against the pull as it flung him down and into the depths of some strange and terrible abyss.
He came to in the empty clearing where the house had been, and that was where he found his friends.
Wiley rewound the tape, not quite sure what to make of this.
“So this strange man offered to play a game, and then he changed you three into animals?”
Jason nodded, looking like one of those birds that dip into a glass of water, “I picked Fang, so I was the wolf. The game wasn't fair, we didn't know what we were doing, but I still killed Moody. I killed both of them because I had been the one to approach the house first. I killed them when I agreed to play the game. It's my fault, I'm a murderer.”
Wiley wasn't so sure, but it was hard to argue with the evidence. The video showed Jason dropping the camera and then suddenly there was a lot of snarling and screeching. Wiley heard the animals fighting, but he heard something else too. Something was laughing, really having a good belly chuckle, and it sounded like a hyena. He couldn't see it, it was all lost amongst the carpet, but suddenly that carpet had turned into grass, and the camera was lying outside in the midday sun. Someone got up, someone sobbed and moaned out in negation, and then they walked away.
That was where the video ended.
In the end, Jason was sent for psychiatric evaluation and the whole thing was chalked up to a drug-induced episode. Jason and his friends were drugged by an old man in the woods and while under the influence of an unknown substance, a substance that didn't show up on any toxicology screening, they killed each other. Blood was found on Jason, blood belonging to Marshall Moody, but blood from the fingernails of Moody was determined to belong to Kai Dillon, which really helped push the narrative that Detective Wiley was working with. He told the press to report an old man in the woods who was drugging people and pushed the stranger danger talks a little harder than usual that year on school visits.
After that day, the tape he took from Jason Weeks was never seen again, but Wiley believed that the boys had run up against something they weren't prepared for. When John Makaro had led the extermination of the Native People that dwelt on his land, he had angered something he wasn't prepared for either. Wiley's grandmother had liked to tell stories about Coyote, the trickster god, and how he could be as fierce as he was cunning when he needed to be. Wiley didn't think they would ever find an old man out there in the woods, but he didn't doubt others would find him.
Coyote liked his games, especially when the players were people he saw as interlopers.
Makaro House remained a town legend, and Wiley had little doubt that those foolish enough to enter would be presented with the same game these three boys had been given.
Wiley shuddered to think how the next challenge might go when Coyote needed more amusement.
submitted by Erutious to SignalHorrorFiction [link] [comments]

2024.05.23 10:54 Erutious Makaro House

“This is Jay, Moody, and Kai, and today we are searching for Makaro House.”
The video was shot in shaky cam, the footage hard to watch without getting a little seasick. Officer Wiley, Detective Wiley now, had seen a lot in his time on the force, but a double homicide perpetrated by this fourteen-year-old kid in front of him was something he hoped he would never see. A double homicide, and carried out against two of his best friends, at that. The two kids in question, Marshal Moody and Kai Dillon, had been friends with Jason Weeks since elementary school, and there had never been any reports of violence or any other alarming behavior, at least none reported to the police. The boys had operated a YouTube channel, JMK Occult, for the last two years, and while their content was pretty typical for kids online, they had been uploading steadily every week since their first video about a strange deer in the North Woods around Cadderly.
Hell, Wiley even watched their stuff sometimes when he was bored.
People in the community knew them, and this was out of character for any of them.
Wiley paused the video, the three boys blundering through the South Woods and chattering like a pack of squirrels, and looked at Jason.
Jason, Jay to his friends, looked like he had aged a decade. He had a gaunt look usually reserved for soldiers who come back from war. His hair had been long and blonde for as long as anyone had known him, but the kid sitting here now was as bald as an egg and his scalp looked scoured instead of shaved. The shirt he had been wearing in the video was gone. He was still wearing the ring of it around his neck, the stretched fabric like a collar, and the jeans he wore were stained and ragged in places that looked fresh. He'd been found with no shoes or socks, but he was wearing the orange flip-flops of a jail resident now.
Wiley knew his parents wanted to bail him out, but he wasn't sure if the judge was going to extend him bail or not, given the nature of his crime.
The way those kids had been ripped apart was something that would haunt him for a long time.
“So, Jason, Officer Russel tells me that someone picked you up beside the road and you told them that your friends were dead and that you had killed them. Is that true?”
Jason nodded, not speaking a word as he continued to stare at the wall.
The woman in question was Darla Hughes, a mother of three who had stopped when she saw a young teenage boy walking on the side of the road in the state he was currently in. Stories of kidnapping and kids held in basements for months while God knew what happened to them were clear in the public consciousness. Darla thought she had found some kid who had escaped his situation, and when she stopped to help him, she said the poor lamb had said eight words and then nothing else.
“He said, my friends are dead, and I killed them.”
They had found the kids in a clearing in the woods about three miles in, a site he was familiar with.
How many times had he and his friends gone looking for the Makaro House?
Everyone in Cadderly knew about Makaro House, and most people's childhoods had been spent looking for it. John Makaro, a prominent figure in Cadderly's history, had been a prominent importer and exporter in England. He had come to America before the Revolutionary War to try to set up a similar business here, and Cadderly had been a large enough port to satisfy his needs without being so big that a new face would be lost. He established a manor in the South Woods, despite being told that it was Indian Land, and the bill of sale did very little to dispatch the native tribe that was living there. He survived two raids by the natives somehow, but his wife and daughter were not so lucky the second time. As such, he rallied a mob of townspeople to go into the woods and help him flush out the natives who were living there. The raid took weeks, but by the end, they had killed or scattered every member of the tribe that lived there.
Satisfied, Mr. Makaro built his lavish estates there, but strange things surrounded it from the first. Workers went missing, people reported strange lights and sounds after dark, and a shriveled figure in skins and feathers could be seen lurking after moonrise. Animals on the property acted strangely, and sometimes people found wolves or bears on the grounds. Usually, they were in a rage, but sometimes they simply fled as if they had been drawn there and weren't sure what to do now that they were. Once the house was finished, John Makaro had a hard time keeping staff. None of the hands he had hired to keep his livestock would stay more than a week, and they all refused to stay on the property after dark. His servants would likewise disappear suddenly, and none of them would stay at night besides his butler, who had been with him for years. People said that Mr. Makaro talked about hearing chanting in the house and seeing strange shadows, and when even his butler disappeared one evening, John locked the doors and stayed in the house alone for a long time. People who came to see him said he could be seen wandering the halls like a ghost, calling out for people only he could see.
When his mansion was seen in full blaze one night, those who were first on the scene said they saw a lone man silhouetted in the flames, his feathers and skins on full display.
He disappeared when they got close, but he had been seen by many in the years to come.
“What did you see out there, Jason?”
Jason continued to stare at the wall.
“I wanna help you, kid, but you have to help yourself first.”
He couldn't help but glance down at the kid's fingers as he left them splayed on that table like sleeping spiders. The nails were dirty, the beds crusty with something like blood, and several of them were torn and ragged. There was grime around his mouth too, and Wiley would have bet his next paycheck that it wasn't a Kool-aid ring. It looked like mud or paint, but it was probably blood.
Jason remained silent as the grave.
“Jason, none of us believe that you killed your friends. You,”
“You're wrong,”
Wiley had been fiddling with the remote, trying not to look at the kid's hands, but when he spoke, he looked up. Jason was still staring at the wall, but his head was shaking as his teeth chattered together. The kid looked like he was staring into the mouth of hell instead of the creme-colored wall of the interrogation room. Wiley almost didn't want to ask him what he had seen, but he needed to know. He needed to know how this kid had killed two other kids, one of whom was bigger than him by a head and sixty pounds.
“Would you like to elaborate?” Wiley asked.
He didn't think the kid would for a minute, but finally, he just reached slowly and pushed play on the remote. He kept looking at Wiley like he thought he might slap his hand, but when he let him get all the way across the table unsmacked, he relaxed a little. The video went on as they walked through the woods, joking and laughing as the woods lived their quiet existence around them.
“We went in at eight, just after Kai's mom went to work. She wouldn't have liked us going into the South Woods, but we wanted to investigate Makaro House. We wanted to do it for our first episode, but Moody said it was something we should work up to. The Makaro House was something big, and we needed to be ready for it. Turned out we weren't.”
On the screen, the kids kept walking through the woods, checking their compass and making their way carefully through the thick brush. They were still chattering, talking about what they might find when they got there, and whether they would find the clearing or see the mysterious mansion that people talked about sometimes. Legend said that a ghostly manor appeared in the clearing sometimes, the ghost of the house and that people who went inside were never seen again. Wiley didn't believe that, but as a kid, he had to admit that the clearing where the house had sat was spooky. All the wood had long ago rotted, the stones taken away for use in other things, but the land just felt wrong. Wiley had never been there after dark, but people claimed to hear footsteps and see things after the sun went down.
Wiley pushed fast forward on the tape and watched as the kids plodded on and on.
Jason wished that he could have sped through that part of the trip.
They had set out at eight, waving to Kai's mom as she pulled out of the driveway. The packs had been pulled out of the garage after she was down the road a piece, and the three set out for the woods. They knew the rough direction of the Makaro House, but no one really came upon it in the same way. Danny Foster had said it was a three-mile walk from the forest's edge to the property, but Jamie had claimed that he and his friends had walked for what seemed like hours.
“When we found it, though,” he said, “we found the house instead of an empty lot. We kept daring each other to go in, but we left when someone lit a fire on the grounds.”
Jason and his friends were hoping to find the house instead of the lot, and as their walk turned into a hike, Kai stopped and looked at the compass.
“We should have gotten there by now.”
Moody chuckled, “Maybe we're going in the wrong direction.”
“Can't be,” Kai protested, “The directions are to go south into the south woods for three miles. Then you'll come to the clearing where Makaro House once sat.”
Jason didn't want to jinx it, but at the time he thought that boded well for them finding the house.
They kept walking, Kai good for an endless stream of conversation, and as the sun began to set, Jason found he was out of breath. His tongue felt like leather as it stuck to the roof of his mouth, and the lunch they had brought had been eaten hours ago. Moody had argued that they should turn around and head back, but Jason had finally vocalized that this could mean they were going to find the house instead of an empty lot.
He was hopeful right until they got what they wanted
When the sun began to go down, Wiley knit his brows together.
“I thought you and your friends were only in the woods for a few hours?”
Jason shook his head slowly, “We were, and we weren't. The time on the camera says we walked for eight hours before I turned it off, but when I got picked up by the side of the road, it was barely noon.”
Wiley pursed his lips, “How is that possible?”
The video cut out, the battery in the camera having been exhausted, and Jason nodded at the screen.
“Those batteries have a max life of three hours. Dad said it was the best battery they had when he ordered it for me, and it was pretty expensive. There's no way one of those batteries could have recorded for eight hours, but it did.”
The recording came back on, and Wiley was shocked to see that they were standing on the lawn of an old Gothic mansion. The sun setting behind the house made a perfect backdrop for the shot, and the boys were oooing and ahhing appreciatively. None of them seemed to believe what they were seeing, the whole thing a little otherworldly, and there seemed to be some argument about who was going to approach the house first.
“Is that,” Wiley stopped to wet his lips,” it can't be. The Makaro House burned down hundreds of years ago.”
“But there it is,” Jason said, his eyes still fixed on the wall, “in all its glory.”
And oh, what glory there had been in it.
Moody had gawped at the house as he had never seen one before.
“No way, there is no way.”
“That's impossible,” Kai breathed, “that house burned to the ground before our father's fathers were even thought of.”
“But there it is,” Jason said, mirroring his later statement, though he could not know it, “in all its glory.”
As the sun set behind it, Jason thought it looked even spookier than it would at night. The mansion rose like an obelisk towards the sky, its towered roofs looking naked without flags or pinions. The boys stood at the edge, trying to shame or bluster one of the others into going there first, but in the end, Jason took the first step. The others looked surprised at his boldness, but they followed closely after, not wanting to be thought less of.
Jason expected the house to disintegrate as he approached, an illusion or a trick of the light, but as his foot came to rest on the boards of the old house, he felt their solidity and continued to climb.
When the doors opened for them, the broad double doors swinging jauntily on their hinges, the three boys pulled back as they prepared to run.
The camera captured their indecision, the portal yawning wide as it waited to receive them, and Jason seemed to surprise even himself as he came forward to investigate it.
“Jason, What if it's a trap?”
“This whole place shouldn't exist, and if you think I'm going to pass up the chance to explore it, you're wrong."
Jason went in, pausing just inside the doors as if waiting for them to crash shut.
When they didn't, Moody followed him and Kai brought up the rear.
Makaro House lived up to its Gothic exterior, the inside full of soft dark velvet and antique furniture. There was a fire burning in the hearth inside the sitting room, tables spread with books in the library, and as they came up the long hall that led towards what was undoubtedly a dining room, Jason began to smell something. It was something like a stew or maybe a roast, and the smell of meat brought them to the dining room. A long table sat in the middle, eight chairs on each side of it, and at the end sat a wrinkled old man eating soup from a bowl.
It was hard to tell before they had gotten close, but the old man looked like he might be Native American. He was dressed in hides, feathers adorning his head and necklace, and he wore a beaded necklace with bones and claws on it. He looked up as they approached, glowering at them evenly, before returning to his meal. He ignored the boys, all three standing back apprehensively before Jason found the courage to speak.
“Excuse me, sir. Is this your house?”
The spoon froze on the way to his mouth, and the old man looked like he'd been slapped.
“My house?” he asked, his voice sounding thin and whispery, “No, child, but it was paid for by my people. We paid with our blood, we paid with our lives, and in the end, the cost was high. I took some of that cost from the previous owner of this home, and now it's only me who lives here.”
Kai made an uncomfortable noise in his throat, like a dog trying to tell its owner that something wasn't safe, and Jason understood the feeling.
“Well, we'll leave you to it then. We didn't mean to,”
“Leave?” the old man said, sounding amused, “oh no. No one leaves Makaro House until they've played the game. It was always a way for our warriors to test their metal, and I have so longed to see it played again. Will you join me? If not, I'm afraid you might find it quite hard to leave.”
Moody took a step back, and Jason heard his heavy footsteps on the carpet as he tried to retreat.
“What's the game?” Jason asked, figuring they could outrun this old coyote if it came down to it.
Jason would wonder why he had thought of him that way, but he didn't have time to ponder it then.
“Choose your piece from my necklace,” the old man said, slipping it off and laying it on the table, “Claw, Talon, or Fang.”
“Then what?” Moody asked, Kai moving behind him as if afraid to come too close.
“Then we start the game.” the old man said, smiling toothily.
For an old man, he certainly had a lot of sharp teeth.
“Okay,” Moody said, walking forward as Kai followed in his wake, “I choose claw.”
“Talon,” said Kai, reaching out to touch it.
“Fang,” said Jason, and as he put his hand out, he felt a sudden, violent shifting in his guts.
He was shrinking, the world moving rapidly all around him. He was smaller, but also more than he was, and he was trapped. His legs scrabbled at the thing that held him, and he tore it to pieces as he freed himself. He heard a loud roar and something big rose up before him. The bear was massive, ragged bits of something hanging from him, and Jason was afraid that he would kill him before he could get fully free of his snare. Something screeched then, flying at the bear's face and attacking him. Jason saw blood run down the snout of the bear, and as it tried to get the bird, a large hawk, off its face, Jason circled and looked for an opening. He was low, on all fours, and he could smell the hot blood as it coursed down the bear's muzzle. Blood and meat and fear and desire mingled in him, and as something laughed, he turned and saw a large coyote sitting at the table. Its grin was huge, its snout longer than any snout had a right to be, and he was laughing in a strange half-animal/half-man way.
The hawk suddenly fell before Jason, twitching and gasping as it died, and he knew the time to strike was now.
Jason leaped on the bear, its arms trying to crush him but not able to find purchase. He sank his teeth into the bear's throat, and for a moment he was afraid he wouldn't make it through all that thick fur. The bear tried to bring its claws to bear, but as the wolf worried at it with its fangs, he was rewarded with a mouth full of hot blood. The bear kept trying to rake him with its claws, but its movements were becoming less coordinated. When it fell, the whole room shook with the sound of its thunder, and Jason rolled off it as it lay still.
“Bravo, bravo,” cried the coyote, clapping its paws together in celebration, “Well fought, young wolf, well fought.”
Jason took a step towards him, but suddenly he was falling. It was as if a whirlpool had opened up beneath him and he was being sucked into it. Jason thrashed and snarled, trying to get his balance, but he was powerless against the pull as it flung him down and into the depths of some strange and terrible abyss.
He came to in the empty clearing where the house had been, and that was where he found his friends.
Wiley rewound the tape, not quite sure what to make of this.
“So this strange man offered to play a game, and then he changed you three into animals?”
Jason nodded, looking like one of those birds that dip into a glass of water, “I picked Fang, so I was the wolf. The game wasn't fair, we didn't know what we were doing, but I still killed Moody. I killed both of them because I had been the one to approach the house first. I killed them when I agreed to play the game. It's my fault, I'm a murderer.”
Wiley wasn't so sure, but it was hard to argue with the evidence. The video showed Jason dropping the camera and then suddenly there was a lot of snarling and screeching. Wiley heard the animals fighting, but he heard something else too. Something was laughing, really having a good belly chuckle, and it sounded like a hyena. He couldn't see it, it was all lost amongst the carpet, but suddenly that carpet had turned into grass, and the camera was lying outside in the midday sun. Someone got up, someone sobbed and moaned out in negation, and then they walked away.
That was where the video ended.
In the end, Jason was sent for psychiatric evaluation and the whole thing was chalked up to a drug-induced episode. Jason and his friends were drugged by an old man in the woods and while under the influence of an unknown substance, a substance that didn't show up on any toxicology screening, they killed each other. Blood was found on Jason, blood belonging to Marshall Moody, but blood from the fingernails of Moody was determined to belong to Kai Dillon, which really helped push the narrative that Detective Wiley was working with. He told the press to report an old man in the woods who was drugging people and pushed the stranger danger talks a little harder than usual that year on school visits.
After that day, the tape he took from Jason Weeks was never seen again, but Wiley believed that the boys had run up against something they weren't prepared for. When John Makaro had led the extermination of the Native People that dwelt on his land, he had angered something he wasn't prepared for either. Wiley's grandmother had liked to tell stories about Coyote, the trickster god, and how he could be as fierce as he was cunning when he needed to be. Wiley didn't think they would ever find an old man out there in the woods, but he didn't doubt others would find him.
Coyote liked his games, especially when the players were people he saw as interlopers.
Makaro House remained a town legend, and Wiley had little doubt that those foolish enough to enter would be presented with the same game these three boys had been given.
Wiley shuddered to think how the next challenge might go when Coyote needed more amusement.
submitted by Erutious to scarystories [link] [comments]

2024.05.23 10:53 CyberGlowZone 3 unmatched immersive gaming light setup solutions

3 unmatched immersive gaming light setup solutions
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submitted by CyberGlowZone to u/CyberGlowZone [link] [comments]

2024.05.23 10:53 Erutious Makaro House

“This is Jay, Moody, and Kai, and today we are searching for Makaro House.”
The video was shot in shaky cam, the footage hard to watch without getting a little seasick. Officer Wiley, Detective Wiley now, had seen a lot in his time on the force, but a double homicide perpetrated by this fourteen-year-old kid in front of him was something he hoped he would never see. A double homicide, and carried out against two of his best friends, at that. The two kids in question, Marshal Moody and Kai Dillon, had been friends with Jason Weeks since elementary school, and there had never been any reports of violence or any other alarming behavior, at least none reported to the police. The boys had operated a YouTube channel, JMK Occult, for the last two years, and while their content was pretty typical for kids online, they had been uploading steadily every week since their first video about a strange deer in the North Woods around Cadderly.
Hell, Wiley even watched their stuff sometimes when he was bored.
People in the community knew them, and this was out of character for any of them.
Wiley paused the video, the three boys blundering through the South Woods and chattering like a pack of squirrels, and looked at Jason.
Jason, Jay to his friends, looked like he had aged a decade. He had a gaunt look usually reserved for soldiers who come back from war. His hair had been long and blonde for as long as anyone had known him, but the kid sitting here now was as bald as an egg and his scalp looked scoured instead of shaved. The shirt he had been wearing in the video was gone. He was still wearing the ring of it around his neck, the stretched fabric like a collar, and the jeans he wore were stained and ragged in places that looked fresh. He'd been found with no shoes or socks, but he was wearing the orange flip-flops of a jail resident now.
Wiley knew his parents wanted to bail him out, but he wasn't sure if the judge was going to extend him bail or not, given the nature of his crime.
The way those kids had been ripped apart was something that would haunt him for a long time.
“So, Jason, Officer Russel tells me that someone picked you up beside the road and you told them that your friends were dead and that you had killed them. Is that true?”
Jason nodded, not speaking a word as he continued to stare at the wall.
The woman in question was Darla Hughes, a mother of three who had stopped when she saw a young teenage boy walking on the side of the road in the state he was currently in. Stories of kidnapping and kids held in basements for months while God knew what happened to them were clear in the public consciousness. Darla thought she had found some kid who had escaped his situation, and when she stopped to help him, she said the poor lamb had said eight words and then nothing else.
“He said, my friends are dead, and I killed them.”
They had found the kids in a clearing in the woods about three miles in, a site he was familiar with.
How many times had he and his friends gone looking for the Makaro House?
Everyone in Cadderly knew about Makaro House, and most people's childhoods had been spent looking for it. John Makaro, a prominent figure in Cadderly's history, had been a prominent importer and exporter in England. He had come to America before the Revolutionary War to try to set up a similar business here, and Cadderly had been a large enough port to satisfy his needs without being so big that a new face would be lost. He established a manor in the South Woods, despite being told that it was Indian Land, and the bill of sale did very little to dispatch the native tribe that was living there. He survived two raids by the natives somehow, but his wife and daughter were not so lucky the second time. As such, he rallied a mob of townspeople to go into the woods and help him flush out the natives who were living there. The raid took weeks, but by the end, they had killed or scattered every member of the tribe that lived there.
Satisfied, Mr. Makaro built his lavish estates there, but strange things surrounded it from the first. Workers went missing, people reported strange lights and sounds after dark, and a shriveled figure in skins and feathers could be seen lurking after moonrise. Animals on the property acted strangely, and sometimes people found wolves or bears on the grounds. Usually, they were in a rage, but sometimes they simply fled as if they had been drawn there and weren't sure what to do now that they were. Once the house was finished, John Makaro had a hard time keeping staff. None of the hands he had hired to keep his livestock would stay more than a week, and they all refused to stay on the property after dark. His servants would likewise disappear suddenly, and none of them would stay at night besides his butler, who had been with him for years. People said that Mr. Makaro talked about hearing chanting in the house and seeing strange shadows, and when even his butler disappeared one evening, John locked the doors and stayed in the house alone for a long time. People who came to see him said he could be seen wandering the halls like a ghost, calling out for people only he could see.
When his mansion was seen in full blaze one night, those who were first on the scene said they saw a lone man silhouetted in the flames, his feathers and skins on full display.
He disappeared when they got close, but he had been seen by many in the years to come.
“What did you see out there, Jason?”
Jason continued to stare at the wall.
“I wanna help you, kid, but you have to help yourself first.”
He couldn't help but glance down at the kid's fingers as he left them splayed on that table like sleeping spiders. The nails were dirty, the beds crusty with something like blood, and several of them were torn and ragged. There was grime around his mouth too, and Wiley would have bet his next paycheck that it wasn't a Kool-aid ring. It looked like mud or paint, but it was probably blood.
Jason remained silent as the grave.
“Jason, none of us believe that you killed your friends. You,”
“You're wrong,”
Wiley had been fiddling with the remote, trying not to look at the kid's hands, but when he spoke, he looked up. Jason was still staring at the wall, but his head was shaking as his teeth chattered together. The kid looked like he was staring into the mouth of hell instead of the creme-colored wall of the interrogation room. Wiley almost didn't want to ask him what he had seen, but he needed to know. He needed to know how this kid had killed two other kids, one of whom was bigger than him by a head and sixty pounds.
“Would you like to elaborate?” Wiley asked.
He didn't think the kid would for a minute, but finally, he just reached slowly and pushed play on the remote. He kept looking at Wiley like he thought he might slap his hand, but when he let him get all the way across the table unsmacked, he relaxed a little. The video went on as they walked through the woods, joking and laughing as the woods lived their quiet existence around them.
“We went in at eight, just after Kai's mom went to work. She wouldn't have liked us going into the South Woods, but we wanted to investigate Makaro House. We wanted to do it for our first episode, but Moody said it was something we should work up to. The Makaro House was something big, and we needed to be ready for it. Turned out we weren't.”
On the screen, the kids kept walking through the woods, checking their compass and making their way carefully through the thick brush. They were still chattering, talking about what they might find when they got there, and whether they would find the clearing or see the mysterious mansion that people talked about sometimes. Legend said that a ghostly manor appeared in the clearing sometimes, the ghost of the house and that people who went inside were never seen again. Wiley didn't believe that, but as a kid, he had to admit that the clearing where the house had sat was spooky. All the wood had long ago rotted, the stones taken away for use in other things, but the land just felt wrong. Wiley had never been there after dark, but people claimed to hear footsteps and see things after the sun went down.
Wiley pushed fast forward on the tape and watched as the kids plodded on and on.
Jason wished that he could have sped through that part of the trip.
They had set out at eight, waving to Kai's mom as she pulled out of the driveway. The packs had been pulled out of the garage after she was down the road a piece, and the three set out for the woods. They knew the rough direction of the Makaro House, but no one really came upon it in the same way. Danny Foster had said it was a three-mile walk from the forest's edge to the property, but Jamie had claimed that he and his friends had walked for what seemed like hours.
“When we found it, though,” he said, “we found the house instead of an empty lot. We kept daring each other to go in, but we left when someone lit a fire on the grounds.”
Jason and his friends were hoping to find the house instead of the lot, and as their walk turned into a hike, Kai stopped and looked at the compass.
“We should have gotten there by now.”
Moody chuckled, “Maybe we're going in the wrong direction.”
“Can't be,” Kai protested, “The directions are to go south into the south woods for three miles. Then you'll come to the clearing where Makaro House once sat.”
Jason didn't want to jinx it, but at the time he thought that boded well for them finding the house.
They kept walking, Kai good for an endless stream of conversation, and as the sun began to set, Jason found he was out of breath. His tongue felt like leather as it stuck to the roof of his mouth, and the lunch they had brought had been eaten hours ago. Moody had argued that they should turn around and head back, but Jason had finally vocalized that this could mean they were going to find the house instead of an empty lot.
He was hopeful right until they got what they wanted
When the sun began to go down, Wiley knit his brows together.
“I thought you and your friends were only in the woods for a few hours?”
Jason shook his head slowly, “We were, and we weren't. The time on the camera says we walked for eight hours before I turned it off, but when I got picked up by the side of the road, it was barely noon.”
Wiley pursed his lips, “How is that possible?”
The video cut out, the battery in the camera having been exhausted, and Jason nodded at the screen.
“Those batteries have a max life of three hours. Dad said it was the best battery they had when he ordered it for me, and it was pretty expensive. There's no way one of those batteries could have recorded for eight hours, but it did.”
The recording came back on, and Wiley was shocked to see that they were standing on the lawn of an old Gothic mansion. The sun setting behind the house made a perfect backdrop for the shot, and the boys were oooing and ahhing appreciatively. None of them seemed to believe what they were seeing, the whole thing a little otherworldly, and there seemed to be some argument about who was going to approach the house first.
“Is that,” Wiley stopped to wet his lips,” it can't be. The Makaro House burned down hundreds of years ago.”
“But there it is,” Jason said, his eyes still fixed on the wall, “in all its glory.”
And oh, what glory there had been in it.
Moody had gawped at the house as he had never seen one before.
“No way, there is no way.”
“That's impossible,” Kai breathed, “that house burned to the ground before our father's fathers were even thought of.”
“But there it is,” Jason said, mirroring his later statement, though he could not know it, “in all its glory.”
As the sun set behind it, Jason thought it looked even spookier than it would at night. The mansion rose like an obelisk towards the sky, its towered roofs looking naked without flags or pinions. The boys stood at the edge, trying to shame or bluster one of the others into going there first, but in the end, Jason took the first step. The others looked surprised at his boldness, but they followed closely after, not wanting to be thought less of.
Jason expected the house to disintegrate as he approached, an illusion or a trick of the light, but as his foot came to rest on the boards of the old house, he felt their solidity and continued to climb.
When the doors opened for them, the broad double doors swinging jauntily on their hinges, the three boys pulled back as they prepared to run.
The camera captured their indecision, the portal yawning wide as it waited to receive them, and Jason seemed to surprise even himself as he came forward to investigate it.
“Jason, What if it's a trap?”
“This whole place shouldn't exist, and if you think I'm going to pass up the chance to explore it, you're wrong."
Jason went in, pausing just inside the doors as if waiting for them to crash shut.
When they didn't, Moody followed him and Kai brought up the rear.
Makaro House lived up to its Gothic exterior, the inside full of soft dark velvet and antique furniture. There was a fire burning in the hearth inside the sitting room, tables spread with books in the library, and as they came up the long hall that led towards what was undoubtedly a dining room, Jason began to smell something. It was something like a stew or maybe a roast, and the smell of meat brought them to the dining room. A long table sat in the middle, eight chairs on each side of it, and at the end sat a wrinkled old man eating soup from a bowl.
It was hard to tell before they had gotten close, but the old man looked like he might be Native American. He was dressed in hides, feathers adorning his head and necklace, and he wore a beaded necklace with bones and claws on it. He looked up as they approached, glowering at them evenly, before returning to his meal. He ignored the boys, all three standing back apprehensively before Jason found the courage to speak.
“Excuse me, sir. Is this your house?”
The spoon froze on the way to his mouth, and the old man looked like he'd been slapped.
“My house?” he asked, his voice sounding thin and whispery, “No, child, but it was paid for by my people. We paid with our blood, we paid with our lives, and in the end, the cost was high. I took some of that cost from the previous owner of this home, and now it's only me who lives here.”
Kai made an uncomfortable noise in his throat, like a dog trying to tell its owner that something wasn't safe, and Jason understood the feeling.
“Well, we'll leave you to it then. We didn't mean to,”
“Leave?” the old man said, sounding amused, “oh no. No one leaves Makaro House until they've played the game. It was always a way for our warriors to test their metal, and I have so longed to see it played again. Will you join me? If not, I'm afraid you might find it quite hard to leave.”
Moody took a step back, and Jason heard his heavy footsteps on the carpet as he tried to retreat.
“What's the game?” Jason asked, figuring they could outrun this old coyote if it came down to it.
Jason would wonder why he had thought of him that way, but he didn't have time to ponder it then.
“Choose your piece from my necklace,” the old man said, slipping it off and laying it on the table, “Claw, Talon, or Fang.”
“Then what?” Moody asked, Kai moving behind him as if afraid to come too close.
“Then we start the game.” the old man said, smiling toothily.
For an old man, he certainly had a lot of sharp teeth.
“Okay,” Moody said, walking forward as Kai followed in his wake, “I choose claw.”
“Talon,” said Kai, reaching out to touch it.
“Fang,” said Jason, and as he put his hand out, he felt a sudden, violent shifting in his guts.
He was shrinking, the world moving rapidly all around him. He was smaller, but also more than he was, and he was trapped. His legs scrabbled at the thing that held him, and he tore it to pieces as he freed himself. He heard a loud roar and something big rose up before him. The bear was massive, ragged bits of something hanging from him, and Jason was afraid that he would kill him before he could get fully free of his snare. Something screeched then, flying at the bear's face and attacking him. Jason saw blood run down the snout of the bear, and as it tried to get the bird, a large hawk, off its face, Jason circled and looked for an opening. He was low, on all fours, and he could smell the hot blood as it coursed down the bear's muzzle. Blood and meat and fear and desire mingled in him, and as something laughed, he turned and saw a large coyote sitting at the table. Its grin was huge, its snout longer than any snout had a right to be, and he was laughing in a strange half-animal/half-man way.
The hawk suddenly fell before Jason, twitching and gasping as it died, and he knew the time to strike was now.
Jason leaped on the bear, its arms trying to crush him but not able to find purchase. He sank his teeth into the bear's throat, and for a moment he was afraid he wouldn't make it through all that thick fur. The bear tried to bring its claws to bear, but as the wolf worried at it with its fangs, he was rewarded with a mouth full of hot blood. The bear kept trying to rake him with its claws, but its movements were becoming less coordinated. When it fell, the whole room shook with the sound of its thunder, and Jason rolled off it as it lay still.
“Bravo, bravo,” cried the coyote, clapping its paws together in celebration, “Well fought, young wolf, well fought.”
Jason took a step towards him, but suddenly he was falling. It was as if a whirlpool had opened up beneath him and he was being sucked into it. Jason thrashed and snarled, trying to get his balance, but he was powerless against the pull as it flung him down and into the depths of some strange and terrible abyss.
He came to in the empty clearing where the house had been, and that was where he found his friends.
Wiley rewound the tape, not quite sure what to make of this.
“So this strange man offered to play a game, and then he changed you three into animals?”
Jason nodded, looking like one of those birds that dip into a glass of water, “I picked Fang, so I was the wolf. The game wasn't fair, we didn't know what we were doing, but I still killed Moody. I killed both of them because I had been the one to approach the house first. I killed them when I agreed to play the game. It's my fault, I'm a murderer.”
Wiley wasn't so sure, but it was hard to argue with the evidence. The video showed Jason dropping the camera and then suddenly there was a lot of snarling and screeching. Wiley heard the animals fighting, but he heard something else too. Something was laughing, really having a good belly chuckle, and it sounded like a hyena. He couldn't see it, it was all lost amongst the carpet, but suddenly that carpet had turned into grass, and the camera was lying outside in the midday sun. Someone got up, someone sobbed and moaned out in negation, and then they walked away.
That was where the video ended.
In the end, Jason was sent for psychiatric evaluation and the whole thing was chalked up to a drug-induced episode. Jason and his friends were drugged by an old man in the woods and while under the influence of an unknown substance, a substance that didn't show up on any toxicology screening, they killed each other. Blood was found on Jason, blood belonging to Marshall Moody, but blood from the fingernails of Moody was determined to belong to Kai Dillon, which really helped push the narrative that Detective Wiley was working with. He told the press to report an old man in the woods who was drugging people and pushed the stranger danger talks a little harder than usual that year on school visits.
After that day, the tape he took from Jason Weeks was never seen again, but Wiley believed that the boys had run up against something they weren't prepared for. When John Makaro had led the extermination of the Native People that dwelt on his land, he had angered something he wasn't prepared for either. Wiley's grandmother had liked to tell stories about Coyote, the trickster god, and how he could be as fierce as he was cunning when he needed to be. Wiley didn't think they would ever find an old man out there in the woods, but he didn't doubt others would find him.
Coyote liked his games, especially when the players were people he saw as interlopers.
Makaro House remained a town legend, and Wiley had little doubt that those foolish enough to enter would be presented with the same game these three boys had been given.
Wiley shuddered to think how the next challenge might go when Coyote needed more amusement.
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2024.05.23 10:52 Erutious Makaro House

“This is Jay, Moody, and Kai, and today we are searching for Makaro House.”
The video was shot in shaky cam, the footage hard to watch without getting a little seasick. Officer Wiley, Detective Wiley now, had seen a lot in his time on the force, but a double homicide perpetrated by this fourteen-year-old kid in front of him was something he hoped he would never see. A double homicide, and carried out against two of his best friends, at that. The two kids in question, Marshal Moody and Kai Dillon, had been friends with Jason Weeks since elementary school, and there had never been any reports of violence or any other alarming behavior, at least none reported to the police. The boys had operated a YouTube channel, JMK Occult, for the last two years, and while their content was pretty typical for kids online, they had been uploading steadily every week since their first video about a strange deer in the North Woods around Cadderly.
Hell, Wiley even watched their stuff sometimes when he was bored.
People in the community knew them, and this was out of character for any of them.
Wiley paused the video, the three boys blundering through the South Woods and chattering like a pack of squirrels, and looked at Jason.
Jason, Jay to his friends, looked like he had aged a decade. He had a gaunt look usually reserved for soldiers who come back from war. His hair had been long and blonde for as long as anyone had known him, but the kid sitting here now was as bald as an egg and his scalp looked scoured instead of shaved. The shirt he had been wearing in the video was gone. He was still wearing the ring of it around his neck, the stretched fabric like a collar, and the jeans he wore were stained and ragged in places that looked fresh. He'd been found with no shoes or socks, but he was wearing the orange flip-flops of a jail resident now.
Wiley knew his parents wanted to bail him out, but he wasn't sure if the judge was going to extend him bail or not, given the nature of his crime.
The way those kids had been ripped apart was something that would haunt him for a long time.
“So, Jason, Officer Russel tells me that someone picked you up beside the road and you told them that your friends were dead and that you had killed them. Is that true?”
Jason nodded, not speaking a word as he continued to stare at the wall.
The woman in question was Darla Hughes, a mother of three who had stopped when she saw a young teenage boy walking on the side of the road in the state he was currently in. Stories of kidnapping and kids held in basements for months while God knew what happened to them were clear in the public consciousness. Darla thought she had found some kid who had escaped his situation, and when she stopped to help him, she said the poor lamb had said eight words and then nothing else.
“He said, my friends are dead, and I killed them.”
They had found the kids in a clearing in the woods about three miles in, a site he was familiar with.
How many times had he and his friends gone looking for the Makaro House?
Everyone in Cadderly knew about Makaro House, and most people's childhoods had been spent looking for it. John Makaro, a prominent figure in Cadderly's history, had been a prominent importer and exporter in England. He had come to America before the Revolutionary War to try to set up a similar business here, and Cadderly had been a large enough port to satisfy his needs without being so big that a new face would be lost. He established a manor in the South Woods, despite being told that it was Indian Land, and the bill of sale did very little to dispatch the native tribe that was living there. He survived two raids by the natives somehow, but his wife and daughter were not so lucky the second time. As such, he rallied a mob of townspeople to go into the woods and help him flush out the natives who were living there. The raid took weeks, but by the end, they had killed or scattered every member of the tribe that lived there.
Satisfied, Mr. Makaro built his lavish estates there, but strange things surrounded it from the first. Workers went missing, people reported strange lights and sounds after dark, and a shriveled figure in skins and feathers could be seen lurking after moonrise. Animals on the property acted strangely, and sometimes people found wolves or bears on the grounds. Usually, they were in a rage, but sometimes they simply fled as if they had been drawn there and weren't sure what to do now that they were. Once the house was finished, John Makaro had a hard time keeping staff. None of the hands he had hired to keep his livestock would stay more than a week, and they all refused to stay on the property after dark. His servants would likewise disappear suddenly, and none of them would stay at night besides his butler, who had been with him for years. People said that Mr. Makaro talked about hearing chanting in the house and seeing strange shadows, and when even his butler disappeared one evening, John locked the doors and stayed in the house alone for a long time. People who came to see him said he could be seen wandering the halls like a ghost, calling out for people only he could see.
When his mansion was seen in full blaze one night, those who were first on the scene said they saw a lone man silhouetted in the flames, his feathers and skins on full display.
He disappeared when they got close, but he had been seen by many in the years to come.
“What did you see out there, Jason?”
Jason continued to stare at the wall.
“I wanna help you, kid, but you have to help yourself first.”
He couldn't help but glance down at the kid's fingers as he left them splayed on that table like sleeping spiders. The nails were dirty, the beds crusty with something like blood, and several of them were torn and ragged. There was grime around his mouth too, and Wiley would have bet his next paycheck that it wasn't a Kool-aid ring. It looked like mud or paint, but it was probably blood.
Jason remained silent as the grave.
“Jason, none of us believe that you killed your friends. You,”
“You're wrong,”
Wiley had been fiddling with the remote, trying not to look at the kid's hands, but when he spoke, he looked up. Jason was still staring at the wall, but his head was shaking as his teeth chattered together. The kid looked like he was staring into the mouth of hell instead of the creme-colored wall of the interrogation room. Wiley almost didn't want to ask him what he had seen, but he needed to know. He needed to know how this kid had killed two other kids, one of whom was bigger than him by a head and sixty pounds.
“Would you like to elaborate?” Wiley asked.
He didn't think the kid would for a minute, but finally, he just reached slowly and pushed play on the remote. He kept looking at Wiley like he thought he might slap his hand, but when he let him get all the way across the table unsmacked, he relaxed a little. The video went on as they walked through the woods, joking and laughing as the woods lived their quiet existence around them.
“We went in at eight, just after Kai's mom went to work. She wouldn't have liked us going into the South Woods, but we wanted to investigate Makaro House. We wanted to do it for our first episode, but Moody said it was something we should work up to. The Makaro House was something big, and we needed to be ready for it. Turned out we weren't.”
On the screen, the kids kept walking through the woods, checking their compass and making their way carefully through the thick brush. They were still chattering, talking about what they might find when they got there, and whether they would find the clearing or see the mysterious mansion that people talked about sometimes. Legend said that a ghostly manor appeared in the clearing sometimes, the ghost of the house and that people who went inside were never seen again. Wiley didn't believe that, but as a kid, he had to admit that the clearing where the house had sat was spooky. All the wood had long ago rotted, the stones taken away for use in other things, but the land just felt wrong. Wiley had never been there after dark, but people claimed to hear footsteps and see things after the sun went down.
Wiley pushed fast forward on the tape and watched as the kids plodded on and on.
Jason wished that he could have sped through that part of the trip.
They had set out at eight, waving to Kai's mom as she pulled out of the driveway. The packs had been pulled out of the garage after she was down the road a piece, and the three set out for the woods. They knew the rough direction of the Makaro House, but no one really came upon it in the same way. Danny Foster had said it was a three-mile walk from the forest's edge to the property, but Jamie had claimed that he and his friends had walked for what seemed like hours.
“When we found it, though,” he said, “we found the house instead of an empty lot. We kept daring each other to go in, but we left when someone lit a fire on the grounds.”
Jason and his friends were hoping to find the house instead of the lot, and as their walk turned into a hike, Kai stopped and looked at the compass.
“We should have gotten there by now.”
Moody chuckled, “Maybe we're going in the wrong direction.”
“Can't be,” Kai protested, “The directions are to go south into the south woods for three miles. Then you'll come to the clearing where Makaro House once sat.”
Jason didn't want to jinx it, but at the time he thought that boded well for them finding the house.
They kept walking, Kai good for an endless stream of conversation, and as the sun began to set, Jason found he was out of breath. His tongue felt like leather as it stuck to the roof of his mouth, and the lunch they had brought had been eaten hours ago. Moody had argued that they should turn around and head back, but Jason had finally vocalized that this could mean they were going to find the house instead of an empty lot.
He was hopeful right until they got what they wanted
When the sun began to go down, Wiley knit his brows together.
“I thought you and your friends were only in the woods for a few hours?”
Jason shook his head slowly, “We were, and we weren't. The time on the camera says we walked for eight hours before I turned it off, but when I got picked up by the side of the road, it was barely noon.”
Wiley pursed his lips, “How is that possible?”
The video cut out, the battery in the camera having been exhausted, and Jason nodded at the screen.
“Those batteries have a max life of three hours. Dad said it was the best battery they had when he ordered it for me, and it was pretty expensive. There's no way one of those batteries could have recorded for eight hours, but it did.”
The recording came back on, and Wiley was shocked to see that they were standing on the lawn of an old Gothic mansion. The sun setting behind the house made a perfect backdrop for the shot, and the boys were oooing and ahhing appreciatively. None of them seemed to believe what they were seeing, the whole thing a little otherworldly, and there seemed to be some argument about who was going to approach the house first.
“Is that,” Wiley stopped to wet his lips,” it can't be. The Makaro House burned down hundreds of years ago.”
“But there it is,” Jason said, his eyes still fixed on the wall, “in all its glory.”
And oh, what glory there had been in it.
Moody had gawped at the house as he had never seen one before.
“No way, there is no way.”
“That's impossible,” Kai breathed, “that house burned to the ground before our father's fathers were even thought of.”
“But there it is,” Jason said, mirroring his later statement, though he could not know it, “in all its glory.”
As the sun set behind it, Jason thought it looked even spookier than it would at night. The mansion rose like an obelisk towards the sky, its towered roofs looking naked without flags or pinions. The boys stood at the edge, trying to shame or bluster one of the others into going there first, but in the end, Jason took the first step. The others looked surprised at his boldness, but they followed closely after, not wanting to be thought less of.
Jason expected the house to disintegrate as he approached, an illusion or a trick of the light, but as his foot came to rest on the boards of the old house, he felt their solidity and continued to climb.
When the doors opened for them, the broad double doors swinging jauntily on their hinges, the three boys pulled back as they prepared to run.
The camera captured their indecision, the portal yawning wide as it waited to receive them, and Jason seemed to surprise even himself as he came forward to investigate it.
“Jason, What if it's a trap?”
“This whole place shouldn't exist, and if you think I'm going to pass up the chance to explore it, you're wrong."
Jason went in, pausing just inside the doors as if waiting for them to crash shut.
When they didn't, Moody followed him and Kai brought up the rear.
Makaro House lived up to its Gothic exterior, the inside full of soft dark velvet and antique furniture. There was a fire burning in the hearth inside the sitting room, tables spread with books in the library, and as they came up the long hall that led towards what was undoubtedly a dining room, Jason began to smell something. It was something like a stew or maybe a roast, and the smell of meat brought them to the dining room. A long table sat in the middle, eight chairs on each side of it, and at the end sat a wrinkled old man eating soup from a bowl.
It was hard to tell before they had gotten close, but the old man looked like he might be Native American. He was dressed in hides, feathers adorning his head and necklace, and he wore a beaded necklace with bones and claws on it. He looked up as they approached, glowering at them evenly, before returning to his meal. He ignored the boys, all three standing back apprehensively before Jason found the courage to speak.
“Excuse me, sir. Is this your house?”
The spoon froze on the way to his mouth, and the old man looked like he'd been slapped.
“My house?” he asked, his voice sounding thin and whispery, “No, child, but it was paid for by my people. We paid with our blood, we paid with our lives, and in the end, the cost was high. I took some of that cost from the previous owner of this home, and now it's only me who lives here.”
Kai made an uncomfortable noise in his throat, like a dog trying to tell its owner that something wasn't safe, and Jason understood the feeling.
“Well, we'll leave you to it then. We didn't mean to,”
“Leave?” the old man said, sounding amused, “oh no. No one leaves Makaro House until they've played the game. It was always a way for our warriors to test their metal, and I have so longed to see it played again. Will you join me? If not, I'm afraid you might find it quite hard to leave.”
Moody took a step back, and Jason heard his heavy footsteps on the carpet as he tried to retreat.
“What's the game?” Jason asked, figuring they could outrun this old coyote if it came down to it.
Jason would wonder why he had thought of him that way, but he didn't have time to ponder it then.
“Choose your piece from my necklace,” the old man said, slipping it off and laying it on the table, “Claw, Talon, or Fang.”
“Then what?” Moody asked, Kai moving behind him as if afraid to come too close.
“Then we start the game.” the old man said, smiling toothily.
For an old man, he certainly had a lot of sharp teeth.
“Okay,” Moody said, walking forward as Kai followed in his wake, “I choose claw.”
“Talon,” said Kai, reaching out to touch it.
“Fang,” said Jason, and as he put his hand out, he felt a sudden, violent shifting in his guts.
He was shrinking, the world moving rapidly all around him. He was smaller, but also more than he was, and he was trapped. His legs scrabbled at the thing that held him, and he tore it to pieces as he freed himself. He heard a loud roar and something big rose up before him. The bear was massive, ragged bits of something hanging from him, and Jason was afraid that he would kill him before he could get fully free of his snare. Something screeched then, flying at the bear's face and attacking him. Jason saw blood run down the snout of the bear, and as it tried to get the bird, a large hawk, off its face, Jason circled and looked for an opening. He was low, on all fours, and he could smell the hot blood as it coursed down the bear's muzzle. Blood and meat and fear and desire mingled in him, and as something laughed, he turned and saw a large coyote sitting at the table. Its grin was huge, its snout longer than any snout had a right to be, and he was laughing in a strange half-animal/half-man way.
The hawk suddenly fell before Jason, twitching and gasping as it died, and he knew the time to strike was now.
Jason leaped on the bear, its arms trying to crush him but not able to find purchase. He sank his teeth into the bear's throat, and for a moment he was afraid he wouldn't make it through all that thick fur. The bear tried to bring its claws to bear, but as the wolf worried at it with its fangs, he was rewarded with a mouth full of hot blood. The bear kept trying to rake him with its claws, but its movements were becoming less coordinated. When it fell, the whole room shook with the sound of its thunder, and Jason rolled off it as it lay still.
“Bravo, bravo,” cried the coyote, clapping its paws together in celebration, “Well fought, young wolf, well fought.”
Jason took a step towards him, but suddenly he was falling. It was as if a whirlpool had opened up beneath him and he was being sucked into it. Jason thrashed and snarled, trying to get his balance, but he was powerless against the pull as it flung him down and into the depths of some strange and terrible abyss.
He came to in the empty clearing where the house had been, and that was where he found his friends.
Wiley rewound the tape, not quite sure what to make of this.
“So this strange man offered to play a game, and then he changed you three into animals?”
Jason nodded, looking like one of those birds that dip into a glass of water, “I picked Fang, so I was the wolf. The game wasn't fair, we didn't know what we were doing, but I still killed Moody. I killed both of them because I had been the one to approach the house first. I killed them when I agreed to play the game. It's my fault, I'm a murderer.”
Wiley wasn't so sure, but it was hard to argue with the evidence. The video showed Jason dropping the camera and then suddenly there was a lot of snarling and screeching. Wiley heard the animals fighting, but he heard something else too. Something was laughing, really having a good belly chuckle, and it sounded like a hyena. He couldn't see it, it was all lost amongst the carpet, but suddenly that carpet had turned into grass, and the camera was lying outside in the midday sun. Someone got up, someone sobbed and moaned out in negation, and then they walked away.
That was where the video ended.
In the end, Jason was sent for psychiatric evaluation and the whole thing was chalked up to a drug-induced episode. Jason and his friends were drugged by an old man in the woods and while under the influence of an unknown substance, a substance that didn't show up on any toxicology screening, they killed each other. Blood was found on Jason, blood belonging to Marshall Moody, but blood from the fingernails of Moody was determined to belong to Kai Dillon, which really helped push the narrative that Detective Wiley was working with. He told the press to report an old man in the woods who was drugging people and pushed the stranger danger talks a little harder than usual that year on school visits.
After that day, the tape he took from Jason Weeks was never seen again, but Wiley believed that the boys had run up against something they weren't prepared for. When John Makaro had led the extermination of the Native People that dwelt on his land, he had angered something he wasn't prepared for either. Wiley's grandmother had liked to tell stories about Coyote, the trickster god, and how he could be as fierce as he was cunning when he needed to be. Wiley didn't think they would ever find an old man out there in the woods, but he didn't doubt others would find him.
Coyote liked his games, especially when the players were people he saw as interlopers.
Makaro House remained a town legend, and Wiley had little doubt that those foolish enough to enter would be presented with the same game these three boys had been given.
Wiley shuddered to think how the next challenge might go when Coyote needed more amusement.
Makaro House
“This is Jay, Moody, and Kai, and today we are searching for Makaro House.”
submitted by Erutious to MecThology [link] [comments]

2024.05.23 10:51 Erutious Makaro House

“This is Jay, Moody, and Kai, and today we are searching for Makaro House.”
The video was shot in shaky cam, the footage hard to watch without getting a little seasick. Officer Wiley, Detective Wiley now, had seen a lot in his time on the force, but a double homicide perpetrated by this fourteen-year-old kid in front of him was something he hoped he would never see. A double homicide, and carried out against two of his best friends, at that. The two kids in question, Marshal Moody and Kai Dillon, had been friends with Jason Weeks since elementary school, and there had never been any reports of violence or any other alarming behavior, at least none reported to the police. The boys had operated a YouTube channel, JMK Occult, for the last two years, and while their content was pretty typical for kids online, they had been uploading steadily every week since their first video about a strange deer in the North Woods around Cadderly.
Hell, Wiley even watched their stuff sometimes when he was bored.
People in the community knew them, and this was out of character for any of them.
Wiley paused the video, the three boys blundering through the South Woods and chattering like a pack of squirrels, and looked at Jason.
Jason, Jay to his friends, looked like he had aged a decade. He had a gaunt look usually reserved for soldiers who come back from war. His hair had been long and blonde for as long as anyone had known him, but the kid sitting here now was as bald as an egg and his scalp looked scoured instead of shaved. The shirt he had been wearing in the video was gone. He was still wearing the ring of it around his neck, the stretched fabric like a collar, and the jeans he wore were stained and ragged in places that looked fresh. He'd been found with no shoes or socks, but he was wearing the orange flip-flops of a jail resident now.
Wiley knew his parents wanted to bail him out, but he wasn't sure if the judge was going to extend him bail or not, given the nature of his crime.
The way those kids had been ripped apart was something that would haunt him for a long time.
“So, Jason, Officer Russel tells me that someone picked you up beside the road and you told them that your friends were dead and that you had killed them. Is that true?”
Jason nodded, not speaking a word as he continued to stare at the wall.
The woman in question was Darla Hughes, a mother of three who had stopped when she saw a young teenage boy walking on the side of the road in the state he was currently in. Stories of kidnapping and kids held in basements for months while God knew what happened to them were clear in the public consciousness. Darla thought she had found some kid who had escaped his situation, and when she stopped to help him, she said the poor lamb had said eight words and then nothing else.
“He said, my friends are dead, and I killed them.”
They had found the kids in a clearing in the woods about three miles in, a site he was familiar with.
How many times had he and his friends gone looking for the Makaro House?
Everyone in Cadderly knew about Makaro House, and most people's childhoods had been spent looking for it. John Makaro, a prominent figure in Cadderly's history, had been a prominent importer and exporter in England. He had come to America before the Revolutionary War to try to set up a similar business here, and Cadderly had been a large enough port to satisfy his needs without being so big that a new face would be lost. He established a manor in the South Woods, despite being told that it was Indian Land, and the bill of sale did very little to dispatch the native tribe that was living there. He survived two raids by the natives somehow, but his wife and daughter were not so lucky the second time. As such, he rallied a mob of townspeople to go into the woods and help him flush out the natives who were living there. The raid took weeks, but by the end, they had killed or scattered every member of the tribe that lived there.
Satisfied, Mr. Makaro built his lavish estates there, but strange things surrounded it from the first. Workers went missing, people reported strange lights and sounds after dark, and a shriveled figure in skins and feathers could be seen lurking after moonrise. Animals on the property acted strangely, and sometimes people found wolves or bears on the grounds. Usually, they were in a rage, but sometimes they simply fled as if they had been drawn there and weren't sure what to do now that they were. Once the house was finished, John Makaro had a hard time keeping staff. None of the hands he had hired to keep his livestock would stay more than a week, and they all refused to stay on the property after dark. His servants would likewise disappear suddenly, and none of them would stay at night besides his butler, who had been with him for years. People said that Mr. Makaro talked about hearing chanting in the house and seeing strange shadows, and when even his butler disappeared one evening, John locked the doors and stayed in the house alone for a long time. People who came to see him said he could be seen wandering the halls like a ghost, calling out for people only he could see.
When his mansion was seen in full blaze one night, those who were first on the scene said they saw a lone man silhouetted in the flames, his feathers and skins on full display.
He disappeared when they got close, but he had been seen by many in the years to come.
“What did you see out there, Jason?”
Jason continued to stare at the wall.
“I wanna help you, kid, but you have to help yourself first.”
He couldn't help but glance down at the kid's fingers as he left them splayed on that table like sleeping spiders. The nails were dirty, the beds crusty with something like blood, and several of them were torn and ragged. There was grime around his mouth too, and Wiley would have bet his next paycheck that it wasn't a Kool-aid ring. It looked like mud or paint, but it was probably blood.
Jason remained silent as the grave.
“Jason, none of us believe that you killed your friends. You,”
“You're wrong,”
Wiley had been fiddling with the remote, trying not to look at the kid's hands, but when he spoke, he looked up. Jason was still staring at the wall, but his head was shaking as his teeth chattered together. The kid looked like he was staring into the mouth of hell instead of the creme-colored wall of the interrogation room. Wiley almost didn't want to ask him what he had seen, but he needed to know. He needed to know how this kid had killed two other kids, one of whom was bigger than him by a head and sixty pounds.
“Would you like to elaborate?” Wiley asked.
He didn't think the kid would for a minute, but finally, he just reached slowly and pushed play on the remote. He kept looking at Wiley like he thought he might slap his hand, but when he let him get all the way across the table unsmacked, he relaxed a little. The video went on as they walked through the woods, joking and laughing as the woods lived their quiet existence around them.
“We went in at eight, just after Kai's mom went to work. She wouldn't have liked us going into the South Woods, but we wanted to investigate Makaro House. We wanted to do it for our first episode, but Moody said it was something we should work up to. The Makaro House was something big, and we needed to be ready for it. Turned out we weren't.”
On the screen, the kids kept walking through the woods, checking their compass and making their way carefully through the thick brush. They were still chattering, talking about what they might find when they got there, and whether they would find the clearing or see the mysterious mansion that people talked about sometimes. Legend said that a ghostly manor appeared in the clearing sometimes, the ghost of the house and that people who went inside were never seen again. Wiley didn't believe that, but as a kid, he had to admit that the clearing where the house had sat was spooky. All the wood had long ago rotted, the stones taken away for use in other things, but the land just felt wrong. Wiley had never been there after dark, but people claimed to hear footsteps and see things after the sun went down.
Wiley pushed fast forward on the tape and watched as the kids plodded on and on.
Jason wished that he could have sped through that part of the trip.
They had set out at eight, waving to Kai's mom as she pulled out of the driveway. The packs had been pulled out of the garage after she was down the road a piece, and the three set out for the woods. They knew the rough direction of the Makaro House, but no one really came upon it in the same way. Danny Foster had said it was a three-mile walk from the forest's edge to the property, but Jamie had claimed that he and his friends had walked for what seemed like hours.
“When we found it, though,” he said, “we found the house instead of an empty lot. We kept daring each other to go in, but we left when someone lit a fire on the grounds.”
Jason and his friends were hoping to find the house instead of the lot, and as their walk turned into a hike, Kai stopped and looked at the compass.
“We should have gotten there by now.”
Moody chuckled, “Maybe we're going in the wrong direction.”
“Can't be,” Kai protested, “The directions are to go south into the south woods for three miles. Then you'll come to the clearing where Makaro House once sat.”
Jason didn't want to jinx it, but at the time he thought that boded well for them finding the house.
They kept walking, Kai good for an endless stream of conversation, and as the sun began to set, Jason found he was out of breath. His tongue felt like leather as it stuck to the roof of his mouth, and the lunch they had brought had been eaten hours ago. Moody had argued that they should turn around and head back, but Jason had finally vocalized that this could mean they were going to find the house instead of an empty lot.
He was hopeful right until they got what they wanted
When the sun began to go down, Wiley knit his brows together.
“I thought you and your friends were only in the woods for a few hours?”
Jason shook his head slowly, “We were, and we weren't. The time on the camera says we walked for eight hours before I turned it off, but when I got picked up by the side of the road, it was barely noon.”
Wiley pursed his lips, “How is that possible?”
The video cut out, the battery in the camera having been exhausted, and Jason nodded at the screen.
“Those batteries have a max life of three hours. Dad said it was the best battery they had when he ordered it for me, and it was pretty expensive. There's no way one of those batteries could have recorded for eight hours, but it did.”
The recording came back on, and Wiley was shocked to see that they were standing on the lawn of an old Gothic mansion. The sun setting behind the house made a perfect backdrop for the shot, and the boys were oooing and ahhing appreciatively. None of them seemed to believe what they were seeing, the whole thing a little otherworldly, and there seemed to be some argument about who was going to approach the house first.
“Is that,” Wiley stopped to wet his lips,” it can't be. The Makaro House burned down hundreds of years ago.”
“But there it is,” Jason said, his eyes still fixed on the wall, “in all its glory.”
And oh, what glory there had been in it.
Moody had gawped at the house as he had never seen one before.
“No way, there is no way.”
“That's impossible,” Kai breathed, “that house burned to the ground before our father's fathers were even thought of.”
“But there it is,” Jason said, mirroring his later statement, though he could not know it, “in all its glory.”
As the sun set behind it, Jason thought it looked even spookier than it would at night. The mansion rose like an obelisk towards the sky, its towered roofs looking naked without flags or pinions. The boys stood at the edge, trying to shame or bluster one of the others into going there first, but in the end, Jason took the first step. The others looked surprised at his boldness, but they followed closely after, not wanting to be thought less of.
Jason expected the house to disintegrate as he approached, an illusion or a trick of the light, but as his foot came to rest on the boards of the old house, he felt their solidity and continued to climb.
When the doors opened for them, the broad double doors swinging jauntily on their hinges, the three boys pulled back as they prepared to run.
The camera captured their indecision, the portal yawning wide as it waited to receive them, and Jason seemed to surprise even himself as he came forward to investigate it.
“Jason, What if it's a trap?”
“This whole place shouldn't exist, and if you think I'm going to pass up the chance to explore it, you're wrong."
Jason went in, pausing just inside the doors as if waiting for them to crash shut.
When they didn't, Moody followed him and Kai brought up the rear.
Makaro House lived up to its Gothic exterior, the inside full of soft dark velvet and antique furniture. There was a fire burning in the hearth inside the sitting room, tables spread with books in the library, and as they came up the long hall that led towards what was undoubtedly a dining room, Jason began to smell something. It was something like a stew or maybe a roast, and the smell of meat brought them to the dining room. A long table sat in the middle, eight chairs on each side of it, and at the end sat a wrinkled old man eating soup from a bowl.
It was hard to tell before they had gotten close, but the old man looked like he might be Native American. He was dressed in hides, feathers adorning his head and necklace, and he wore a beaded necklace with bones and claws on it. He looked up as they approached, glowering at them evenly, before returning to his meal. He ignored the boys, all three standing back apprehensively before Jason found the courage to speak.
“Excuse me, sir. Is this your house?”
The spoon froze on the way to his mouth, and the old man looked like he'd been slapped.
“My house?” he asked, his voice sounding thin and whispery, “No, child, but it was paid for by my people. We paid with our blood, we paid with our lives, and in the end, the cost was high. I took some of that cost from the previous owner of this home, and now it's only me who lives here.”
Kai made an uncomfortable noise in his throat, like a dog trying to tell its owner that something wasn't safe, and Jason understood the feeling.
“Well, we'll leave you to it then. We didn't mean to,”
“Leave?” the old man said, sounding amused, “oh no. No one leaves Makaro House until they've played the game. It was always a way for our warriors to test their metal, and I have so longed to see it played again. Will you join me? If not, I'm afraid you might find it quite hard to leave.”
Moody took a step back, and Jason heard his heavy footsteps on the carpet as he tried to retreat.
“What's the game?” Jason asked, figuring they could outrun this old coyote if it came down to it.
Jason would wonder why he had thought of him that way, but he didn't have time to ponder it then.
“Choose your piece from my necklace,” the old man said, slipping it off and laying it on the table, “Claw, Talon, or Fang.”
“Then what?” Moody asked, Kai moving behind him as if afraid to come too close.
“Then we start the game.” the old man said, smiling toothily.
For an old man, he certainly had a lot of sharp teeth.
“Okay,” Moody said, walking forward as Kai followed in his wake, “I choose claw.”
“Talon,” said Kai, reaching out to touch it.
“Fang,” said Jason, and as he put his hand out, he felt a sudden, violent shifting in his guts.
He was shrinking, the world moving rapidly all around him. He was smaller, but also more than he was, and he was trapped. His legs scrabbled at the thing that held him, and he tore it to pieces as he freed himself. He heard a loud roar and something big rose up before him. The bear was massive, ragged bits of something hanging from him, and Jason was afraid that he would kill him before he could get fully free of his snare. Something screeched then, flying at the bear's face and attacking him. Jason saw blood run down the snout of the bear, and as it tried to get the bird, a large hawk, off its face, Jason circled and looked for an opening. He was low, on all fours, and he could smell the hot blood as it coursed down the bear's muzzle. Blood and meat and fear and desire mingled in him, and as something laughed, he turned and saw a large coyote sitting at the table. Its grin was huge, its snout longer than any snout had a right to be, and he was laughing in a strange half-animal/half-man way.
The hawk suddenly fell before Jason, twitching and gasping as it died, and he knew the time to strike was now.
Jason leaped on the bear, its arms trying to crush him but not able to find purchase. He sank his teeth into the bear's throat, and for a moment he was afraid he wouldn't make it through all that thick fur. The bear tried to bring its claws to bear, but as the wolf worried at it with its fangs, he was rewarded with a mouth full of hot blood. The bear kept trying to rake him with its claws, but its movements were becoming less coordinated. When it fell, the whole room shook with the sound of its thunder, and Jason rolled off it as it lay still.
“Bravo, bravo,” cried the coyote, clapping its paws together in celebration, “Well fought, young wolf, well fought.”
Jason took a step towards him, but suddenly he was falling. It was as if a whirlpool had opened up beneath him and he was being sucked into it. Jason thrashed and snarled, trying to get his balance, but he was powerless against the pull as it flung him down and into the depths of some strange and terrible abyss.
He came to in the empty clearing where the house had been, and that was where he found his friends.
Wiley rewound the tape, not quite sure what to make of this.
“So this strange man offered to play a game, and then he changed you three into animals?”
Jason nodded, looking like one of those birds that dip into a glass of water, “I picked Fang, so I was the wolf. The game wasn't fair, we didn't know what we were doing, but I still killed Moody. I killed both of them because I had been the one to approach the house first. I killed them when I agreed to play the game. It's my fault, I'm a murderer.”
Wiley wasn't so sure, but it was hard to argue with the evidence. The video showed Jason dropping the camera and then suddenly there was a lot of snarling and screeching. Wiley heard the animals fighting, but he heard something else too. Something was laughing, really having a good belly chuckle, and it sounded like a hyena. He couldn't see it, it was all lost amongst the carpet, but suddenly that carpet had turned into grass, and the camera was lying outside in the midday sun. Someone got up, someone sobbed and moaned out in negation, and then they walked away.
That was where the video ended.
In the end, Jason was sent for psychiatric evaluation and the whole thing was chalked up to a drug-induced episode. Jason and his friends were drugged by an old man in the woods and while under the influence of an unknown substance, a substance that didn't show up on any toxicology screening, they killed each other. Blood was found on Jason, blood belonging to Marshall Moody, but blood from the fingernails of Moody was determined to belong to Kai Dillon, which really helped push the narrative that Detective Wiley was working with. He told the press to report an old man in the woods who was drugging people and pushed the stranger danger talks a little harder than usual that year on school visits.
After that day, the tape he took from Jason Weeks was never seen again, but Wiley believed that the boys had run up against something they weren't prepared for. When John Makaro had led the extermination of the Native People that dwelt on his land, he had angered something he wasn't prepared for either. Wiley's grandmother had liked to tell stories about Coyote, the trickster god, and how he could be as fierce as he was cunning when he needed to be. Wiley didn't think they would ever find an old man out there in the woods, but he didn't doubt others would find him.
Coyote liked his games, especially when the players were people he saw as interlopers.
Makaro House remained a town legend, and Wiley had little doubt that those foolish enough to enter would be presented with the same game these three boys had been given.
Wiley shuddered to think how the next challenge might go when Coyote needed more amusement.
Makaro House
“This is Jay, Moody, and Kai, and today we are searching for Makaro House.”
submitted by Erutious to libraryofshadows [link] [comments]

2024.05.23 10:50 Erutious Makaro House

“This is Jay, Moody, and Kai, and today we are searching for Makaro House.”
The video was shot in shaky cam, the footage hard to watch without getting a little seasick. Officer Wiley, Detective Wiley now, had seen a lot in his time on the force, but a double homicide perpetrated by this fourteen-year-old kid in front of him was something he hoped he would never see. A double homicide, and carried out against two of his best friends, at that. The two kids in question, Marshal Moody and Kai Dillon, had been friends with Jason Weeks since elementary school, and there had never been any reports of violence or any other alarming behavior, at least none reported to the police. The boys had operated a YouTube channel, JMK Occult, for the last two years, and while their content was pretty typical for kids online, they had been uploading steadily every week since their first video about a strange deer in the North Woods around Cadderly.
Hell, Wiley even watched their stuff sometimes when he was bored.
People in the community knew them, and this was out of character for any of them.
Wiley paused the video, the three boys blundering through the South Woods and chattering like a pack of squirrels, and looked at Jason.
Jason, Jay to his friends, looked like he had aged a decade. He had a gaunt look usually reserved for soldiers who come back from war. His hair had been long and blonde for as long as anyone had known him, but the kid sitting here now was as bald as an egg and his scalp looked scoured instead of shaved. The shirt he had been wearing in the video was gone. He was still wearing the ring of it around his neck, the stretched fabric like a collar, and the jeans he wore were stained and ragged in places that looked fresh. He'd been found with no shoes or socks, but he was wearing the orange flip-flops of a jail resident now.
Wiley knew his parents wanted to bail him out, but he wasn't sure if the judge was going to extend him bail or not, given the nature of his crime.
The way those kids had been ripped apart was something that would haunt him for a long time.
“So, Jason, Officer Russel tells me that someone picked you up beside the road and you told them that your friends were dead and that you had killed them. Is that true?”
Jason nodded, not speaking a word as he continued to stare at the wall.
The woman in question was Darla Hughes, a mother of three who had stopped when she saw a young teenage boy walking on the side of the road in the state he was currently in. Stories of kidnapping and kids held in basements for months while God knew what happened to them were clear in the public consciousness. Darla thought she had found some kid who had escaped his situation, and when she stopped to help him, she said the poor lamb had said eight words and then nothing else.
“He said, my friends are dead, and I killed them.”
They had found the kids in a clearing in the woods about three miles in, a site he was familiar with.
How many times had he and his friends gone looking for the Makaro House?
Everyone in Cadderly knew about Makaro House, and most people's childhoods had been spent looking for it. John Makaro, a prominent figure in Cadderly's history, had been a prominent importer and exporter in England. He had come to America before the Revolutionary War to try to set up a similar business here, and Cadderly had been a large enough port to satisfy his needs without being so big that a new face would be lost. He established a manor in the South Woods, despite being told that it was Indian Land, and the bill of sale did very little to dispatch the native tribe that was living there. He survived two raids by the natives somehow, but his wife and daughter were not so lucky the second time. As such, he rallied a mob of townspeople to go into the woods and help him flush out the natives who were living there. The raid took weeks, but by the end, they had killed or scattered every member of the tribe that lived there.
Satisfied, Mr. Makaro built his lavish estates there, but strange things surrounded it from the first. Workers went missing, people reported strange lights and sounds after dark, and a shriveled figure in skins and feathers could be seen lurking after moonrise. Animals on the property acted strangely, and sometimes people found wolves or bears on the grounds. Usually, they were in a rage, but sometimes they simply fled as if they had been drawn there and weren't sure what to do now that they were. Once the house was finished, John Makaro had a hard time keeping staff. None of the hands he had hired to keep his livestock would stay more than a week, and they all refused to stay on the property after dark. His servants would likewise disappear suddenly, and none of them would stay at night besides his butler, who had been with him for years. People said that Mr. Makaro talked about hearing chanting in the house and seeing strange shadows, and when even his butler disappeared one evening, John locked the doors and stayed in the house alone for a long time. People who came to see him said he could be seen wandering the halls like a ghost, calling out for people only he could see.
When his mansion was seen in full blaze one night, those who were first on the scene said they saw a lone man silhouetted in the flames, his feathers and skins on full display.
He disappeared when they got close, but he had been seen by many in the years to come.
“What did you see out there, Jason?”
Jason continued to stare at the wall.
“I wanna help you, kid, but you have to help yourself first.”
He couldn't help but glance down at the kid's fingers as he left them splayed on that table like sleeping spiders. The nails were dirty, the beds crusty with something like blood, and several of them were torn and ragged. There was grime around his mouth too, and Wiley would have bet his next paycheck that it wasn't a Kool-aid ring. It looked like mud or paint, but it was probably blood.
Jason remained silent as the grave.
“Jason, none of us believe that you killed your friends. You,”
“You're wrong,”
Wiley had been fiddling with the remote, trying not to look at the kid's hands, but when he spoke, he looked up. Jason was still staring at the wall, but his head was shaking as his teeth chattered together. The kid looked like he was staring into the mouth of hell instead of the creme-colored wall of the interrogation room. Wiley almost didn't want to ask him what he had seen, but he needed to know. He needed to know how this kid had killed two other kids, one of whom was bigger than him by a head and sixty pounds.
“Would you like to elaborate?” Wiley asked.
He didn't think the kid would for a minute, but finally, he just reached slowly and pushed play on the remote. He kept looking at Wiley like he thought he might slap his hand, but when he let him get all the way across the table unsmacked, he relaxed a little. The video went on as they walked through the woods, joking and laughing as the woods lived their quiet existence around them.
“We went in at eight, just after Kai's mom went to work. She wouldn't have liked us going into the South Woods, but we wanted to investigate Makaro House. We wanted to do it for our first episode, but Moody said it was something we should work up to. The Makaro House was something big, and we needed to be ready for it. Turned out we weren't.”
On the screen, the kids kept walking through the woods, checking their compass and making their way carefully through the thick brush. They were still chattering, talking about what they might find when they got there, and whether they would find the clearing or see the mysterious mansion that people talked about sometimes. Legend said that a ghostly manor appeared in the clearing sometimes, the ghost of the house and that people who went inside were never seen again. Wiley didn't believe that, but as a kid, he had to admit that the clearing where the house had sat was spooky. All the wood had long ago rotted, the stones taken away for use in other things, but the land just felt wrong. Wiley had never been there after dark, but people claimed to hear footsteps and see things after the sun went down.
Wiley pushed fast forward on the tape and watched as the kids plodded on and on.
Jason wished that he could have sped through that part of the trip.
They had set out at eight, waving to Kai's mom as she pulled out of the driveway. The packs had been pulled out of the garage after she was down the road a piece, and the three set out for the woods. They knew the rough direction of the Makaro House, but no one really came upon it in the same way. Danny Foster had said it was a three-mile walk from the forest's edge to the property, but Jamie had claimed that he and his friends had walked for what seemed like hours.
“When we found it, though,” he said, “we found the house instead of an empty lot. We kept daring each other to go in, but we left when someone lit a fire on the grounds.”
Jason and his friends were hoping to find the house instead of the lot, and as their walk turned into a hike, Kai stopped and looked at the compass.
“We should have gotten there by now.”
Moody chuckled, “Maybe we're going in the wrong direction.”
“Can't be,” Kai protested, “The directions are to go south into the south woods for three miles. Then you'll come to the clearing where Makaro House once sat.”
Jason didn't want to jinx it, but at the time he thought that boded well for them finding the house.
They kept walking, Kai good for an endless stream of conversation, and as the sun began to set, Jason found he was out of breath. His tongue felt like leather as it stuck to the roof of his mouth, and the lunch they had brought had been eaten hours ago. Moody had argued that they should turn around and head back, but Jason had finally vocalized that this could mean they were going to find the house instead of an empty lot.
He was hopeful right until they got what they wanted
When the sun began to go down, Wiley knit his brows together.
“I thought you and your friends were only in the woods for a few hours?”
Jason shook his head slowly, “We were, and we weren't. The time on the camera says we walked for eight hours before I turned it off, but when I got picked up by the side of the road, it was barely noon.”
Wiley pursed his lips, “How is that possible?”
The video cut out, the battery in the camera having been exhausted, and Jason nodded at the screen.
“Those batteries have a max life of three hours. Dad said it was the best battery they had when he ordered it for me, and it was pretty expensive. There's no way one of those batteries could have recorded for eight hours, but it did.”
The recording came back on, and Wiley was shocked to see that they were standing on the lawn of an old Gothic mansion. The sun setting behind the house made a perfect backdrop for the shot, and the boys were oooing and ahhing appreciatively. None of them seemed to believe what they were seeing, the whole thing a little otherworldly, and there seemed to be some argument about who was going to approach the house first.
“Is that,” Wiley stopped to wet his lips,” it can't be. The Makaro House burned down hundreds of years ago.”
“But there it is,” Jason said, his eyes still fixed on the wall, “in all its glory.”
And oh, what glory there had been in it.
Moody had gawped at the house as he had never seen one before.
“No way, there is no way.”
“That's impossible,” Kai breathed, “that house burned to the ground before our father's fathers were even thought of.”
“But there it is,” Jason said, mirroring his later statement, though he could not know it, “in all its glory.”
As the sun set behind it, Jason thought it looked even spookier than it would at night. The mansion rose like an obelisk towards the sky, its towered roofs looking naked without flags or pinions. The boys stood at the edge, trying to shame or bluster one of the others into going there first, but in the end, Jason took the first step. The others looked surprised at his boldness, but they followed closely after, not wanting to be thought less of.
Jason expected the house to disintegrate as he approached, an illusion or a trick of the light, but as his foot came to rest on the boards of the old house, he felt their solidity and continued to climb.
When the doors opened for them, the broad double doors swinging jauntily on their hinges, the three boys pulled back as they prepared to run.
The camera captured their indecision, the portal yawning wide as it waited to receive them, and Jason seemed to surprise even himself as he came forward to investigate it.
“Jason, What if it's a trap?”
“This whole place shouldn't exist, and if you think I'm going to pass up the chance to explore it, you're wrong."
Jason went in, pausing just inside the doors as if waiting for them to crash shut.
When they didn't, Moody followed him and Kai brought up the rear.
Makaro House lived up to its Gothic exterior, the inside full of soft dark velvet and antique furniture. There was a fire burning in the hearth inside the sitting room, tables spread with books in the library, and as they came up the long hall that led towards what was undoubtedly a dining room, Jason began to smell something. It was something like a stew or maybe a roast, and the smell of meat brought them to the dining room. A long table sat in the middle, eight chairs on each side of it, and at the end sat a wrinkled old man eating soup from a bowl.
It was hard to tell before they had gotten close, but the old man looked like he might be Native American. He was dressed in hides, feathers adorning his head and necklace, and he wore a beaded necklace with bones and claws on it. He looked up as they approached, glowering at them evenly, before returning to his meal. He ignored the boys, all three standing back apprehensively before Jason found the courage to speak.
“Excuse me, sir. Is this your house?”
The spoon froze on the way to his mouth, and the old man looked like he'd been slapped.
“My house?” he asked, his voice sounding thin and whispery, “No, child, but it was paid for by my people. We paid with our blood, we paid with our lives, and in the end, the cost was high. I took some of that cost from the previous owner of this home, and now it's only me who lives here.”
Kai made an uncomfortable noise in his throat, like a dog trying to tell its owner that something wasn't safe, and Jason understood the feeling.
“Well, we'll leave you to it then. We didn't mean to,”
“Leave?” the old man said, sounding amused, “oh no. No one leaves Makaro House until they've played the game. It was always a way for our warriors to test their metal, and I have so longed to see it played again. Will you join me? If not, I'm afraid you might find it quite hard to leave.”
Moody took a step back, and Jason heard his heavy footsteps on the carpet as he tried to retreat.
“What's the game?” Jason asked, figuring they could outrun this old coyote if it came down to it.
Jason would wonder why he had thought of him that way, but he didn't have time to ponder it then.
“Choose your piece from my necklace,” the old man said, slipping it off and laying it on the table, “Claw, Talon, or Fang.”
“Then what?” Moody asked, Kai moving behind him as if afraid to come too close.
“Then we start the game.” the old man said, smiling toothily.
For an old man, he certainly had a lot of sharp teeth.
“Okay,” Moody said, walking forward as Kai followed in his wake, “I choose claw.”
“Talon,” said Kai, reaching out to touch it.
“Fang,” said Jason, and as he put his hand out, he felt a sudden, violent shifting in his guts.
He was shrinking, the world moving rapidly all around him. He was smaller, but also more than he was, and he was trapped. His legs scrabbled at the thing that held him, and he tore it to pieces as he freed himself. He heard a loud roar and something big rose up before him. The bear was massive, ragged bits of something hanging from him, and Jason was afraid that he would kill him before he could get fully free of his snare. Something screeched then, flying at the bear's face and attacking him. Jason saw blood run down the snout of the bear, and as it tried to get the bird, a large hawk, off its face, Jason circled and looked for an opening. He was low, on all fours, and he could smell the hot blood as it coursed down the bear's muzzle. Blood and meat and fear and desire mingled in him, and as something laughed, he turned and saw a large coyote sitting at the table. Its grin was huge, its snout longer than any snout had a right to be, and he was laughing in a strange half-animal/half-man way.
The hawk suddenly fell before Jason, twitching and gasping as it died, and he knew the time to strike was now.
Jason leaped on the bear, its arms trying to crush him but not able to find purchase. He sank his teeth into the bear's throat, and for a moment he was afraid he wouldn't make it through all that thick fur. The bear tried to bring its claws to bear, but as the wolf worried at it with its fangs, he was rewarded with a mouth full of hot blood. The bear kept trying to rake him with its claws, but its movements were becoming less coordinated. When it fell, the whole room shook with the sound of its thunder, and Jason rolled off it as it lay still.
“Bravo, bravo,” cried the coyote, clapping its paws together in celebration, “Well fought, young wolf, well fought.”
Jason took a step towards him, but suddenly he was falling. It was as if a whirlpool had opened up beneath him and he was being sucked into it. Jason thrashed and snarled, trying to get his balance, but he was powerless against the pull as it flung him down and into the depths of some strange and terrible abyss.
He came to in the empty clearing where the house had been, and that was where he found his friends.
Wiley rewound the tape, not quite sure what to make of this.
“So this strange man offered to play a game, and then he changed you three into animals?”
Jason nodded, looking like one of those birds that dip into a glass of water, “I picked Fang, so I was the wolf. The game wasn't fair, we didn't know what we were doing, but I still killed Moody. I killed both of them because I had been the one to approach the house first. I killed them when I agreed to play the game. It's my fault, I'm a murderer.”
Wiley wasn't so sure, but it was hard to argue with the evidence. The video showed Jason dropping the camera and then suddenly there was a lot of snarling and screeching. Wiley heard the animals fighting, but he heard something else too. Something was laughing, really having a good belly chuckle, and it sounded like a hyena. He couldn't see it, it was all lost amongst the carpet, but suddenly that carpet had turned into grass, and the camera was lying outside in the midday sun. Someone got up, someone sobbed and moaned out in negation, and then they walked away.
That was where the video ended.
In the end, Jason was sent for psychiatric evaluation and the whole thing was chalked up to a drug-induced episode. Jason and his friends were drugged by an old man in the woods and while under the influence of an unknown substance, a substance that didn't show up on any toxicology screening, they killed each other. Blood was found on Jason, blood belonging to Marshall Moody, but blood from the fingernails of Moody was determined to belong to Kai Dillon, which really helped push the narrative that Detective Wiley was working with. He told the press to report an old man in the woods who was drugging people and pushed the stranger danger talks a little harder than usual that year on school visits.
After that day, the tape he took from Jason Weeks was never seen again, but Wiley believed that the boys had run up against something they weren't prepared for. When John Makaro had led the extermination of the Native People that dwelt on his land, he had angered something he wasn't prepared for either. Wiley's grandmother had liked to tell stories about Coyote, the trickster god, and how he could be as fierce as he was cunning when he needed to be. Wiley didn't think they would ever find an old man out there in the woods, but he didn't doubt others would find him.
Coyote liked his games, especially when the players were people he saw as interlopers.
Makaro House remained a town legend, and Wiley had little doubt that those foolish enough to enter would be presented with the same game these three boys had been given.
Wiley shuddered to think how the next challenge might go when Coyote needed more amusement.
Makaro House
“This is Jay, Moody, and Kai, and today we are searching for Makaro House.”
submitted by Erutious to joinmeatthecampfire [link] [comments]

2024.05.23 10:49 Erutious Makaro House

“This is Jay, Moody, and Kai, and today we are searching for Makaro House.”
The video was shot in shaky cam, the footage hard to watch without getting a little seasick. Officer Wiley, Detective Wiley now, had seen a lot in his time on the force, but a double homicide perpetrated by this fourteen-year-old kid in front of him was something he hoped he would never see. A double homicide, and carried out against two of his best friends, at that. The two kids in question, Marshal Moody and Kai Dillon, had been friends with Jason Weeks since elementary school, and there had never been any reports of violence or any other alarming behavior, at least none reported to the police. The boys had operated a YouTube channel, JMK Occult, for the last two years, and while their content was pretty typical for kids online, they had been uploading steadily every week since their first video about a strange deer in the North Woods around Cadderly.
Hell, Wiley even watched their stuff sometimes when he was bored.
People in the community knew them, and this was out of character for any of them.
Wiley paused the video, the three boys blundering through the South Woods and chattering like a pack of squirrels, and looked at Jason.
Jason, Jay to his friends, looked like he had aged a decade. He had a gaunt look usually reserved for soldiers who come back from war. His hair had been long and blonde for as long as anyone had known him, but the kid sitting here now was as bald as an egg and his scalp looked scoured instead of shaved. The shirt he had been wearing in the video was gone. He was still wearing the ring of it around his neck, the stretched fabric like a collar, and the jeans he wore were stained and ragged in places that looked fresh. He'd been found with no shoes or socks, but he was wearing the orange flip-flops of a jail resident now.
Wiley knew his parents wanted to bail him out, but he wasn't sure if the judge was going to extend him bail or not, given the nature of his crime.
The way those kids had been ripped apart was something that would haunt him for a long time.
“So, Jason, Officer Russel tells me that someone picked you up beside the road and you told them that your friends were dead and that you had killed them. Is that true?”
Jason nodded, not speaking a word as he continued to stare at the wall.
The woman in question was Darla Hughes, a mother of three who had stopped when she saw a young teenage boy walking on the side of the road in the state he was currently in. Stories of kidnapping and kids held in basements for months while God knew what happened to them were clear in the public consciousness. Darla thought she had found some kid who had escaped his situation, and when she stopped to help him, she said the poor lamb had said eight words and then nothing else.
“He said, my friends are dead, and I killed them.”
They had found the kids in a clearing in the woods about three miles in, a site he was familiar with.
How many times had he and his friends gone looking for the Makaro House?
Everyone in Cadderly knew about Makaro House, and most people's childhoods had been spent looking for it. John Makaro, a prominent figure in Cadderly's history, had been a prominent importer and exporter in England. He had come to America before the Revolutionary War to try to set up a similar business here, and Cadderly had been a large enough port to satisfy his needs without being so big that a new face would be lost. He established a manor in the South Woods, despite being told that it was Indian Land, and the bill of sale did very little to dispatch the native tribe that was living there. He survived two raids by the natives somehow, but his wife and daughter were not so lucky the second time. As such, he rallied a mob of townspeople to go into the woods and help him flush out the natives who were living there. The raid took weeks, but by the end, they had killed or scattered every member of the tribe that lived there.
Satisfied, Mr. Makaro built his lavish estates there, but strange things surrounded it from the first. Workers went missing, people reported strange lights and sounds after dark, and a shriveled figure in skins and feathers could be seen lurking after moonrise. Animals on the property acted strangely, and sometimes people found wolves or bears on the grounds. Usually, they were in a rage, but sometimes they simply fled as if they had been drawn there and weren't sure what to do now that they were. Once the house was finished, John Makaro had a hard time keeping staff. None of the hands he had hired to keep his livestock would stay more than a week, and they all refused to stay on the property after dark. His servants would likewise disappear suddenly, and none of them would stay at night besides his butler, who had been with him for years. People said that Mr. Makaro talked about hearing chanting in the house and seeing strange shadows, and when even his butler disappeared one evening, John locked the doors and stayed in the house alone for a long time. People who came to see him said he could be seen wandering the halls like a ghost, calling out for people only he could see.
When his mansion was seen in full blaze one night, those who were first on the scene said they saw a lone man silhouetted in the flames, his feathers and skins on full display.
He disappeared when they got close, but he had been seen by many in the years to come.
“What did you see out there, Jason?”
Jason continued to stare at the wall.
“I wanna help you, kid, but you have to help yourself first.”
He couldn't help but glance down at the kid's fingers as he left them splayed on that table like sleeping spiders. The nails were dirty, the beds crusty with something like blood, and several of them were torn and ragged. There was grime around his mouth too, and Wiley would have bet his next paycheck that it wasn't a Kool-aid ring. It looked like mud or paint, but it was probably blood.
Jason remained silent as the grave.
“Jason, none of us believe that you killed your friends. You,”
“You're wrong,”
Wiley had been fiddling with the remote, trying not to look at the kid's hands, but when he spoke, he looked up. Jason was still staring at the wall, but his head was shaking as his teeth chattered together. The kid looked like he was staring into the mouth of hell instead of the creme-colored wall of the interrogation room. Wiley almost didn't want to ask him what he had seen, but he needed to know. He needed to know how this kid had killed two other kids, one of whom was bigger than him by a head and sixty pounds.
“Would you like to elaborate?” Wiley asked.
He didn't think the kid would for a minute, but finally, he just reached slowly and pushed play on the remote. He kept looking at Wiley like he thought he might slap his hand, but when he let him get all the way across the table unsmacked, he relaxed a little. The video went on as they walked through the woods, joking and laughing as the woods lived their quiet existence around them.
“We went in at eight, just after Kai's mom went to work. She wouldn't have liked us going into the South Woods, but we wanted to investigate Makaro House. We wanted to do it for our first episode, but Moody said it was something we should work up to. The Makaro House was something big, and we needed to be ready for it. Turned out we weren't.”
On the screen, the kids kept walking through the woods, checking their compass and making their way carefully through the thick brush. They were still chattering, talking about what they might find when they got there, and whether they would find the clearing or see the mysterious mansion that people talked about sometimes. Legend said that a ghostly manor appeared in the clearing sometimes, the ghost of the house and that people who went inside were never seen again. Wiley didn't believe that, but as a kid, he had to admit that the clearing where the house had sat was spooky. All the wood had long ago rotted, the stones taken away for use in other things, but the land just felt wrong. Wiley had never been there after dark, but people claimed to hear footsteps and see things after the sun went down.
Wiley pushed fast forward on the tape and watched as the kids plodded on and on.
Jason wished that he could have sped through that part of the trip.
They had set out at eight, waving to Kai's mom as she pulled out of the driveway. The packs had been pulled out of the garage after she was down the road a piece, and the three set out for the woods. They knew the rough direction of the Makaro House, but no one really came upon it in the same way. Danny Foster had said it was a three-mile walk from the forest's edge to the property, but Jamie had claimed that he and his friends had walked for what seemed like hours.
“When we found it, though,” he said, “we found the house instead of an empty lot. We kept daring each other to go in, but we left when someone lit a fire on the grounds.”
Jason and his friends were hoping to find the house instead of the lot, and as their walk turned into a hike, Kai stopped and looked at the compass.
“We should have gotten there by now.”
Moody chuckled, “Maybe we're going in the wrong direction.”
“Can't be,” Kai protested, “The directions are to go south into the south woods for three miles. Then you'll come to the clearing where Makaro House once sat.”
Jason didn't want to jinx it, but at the time he thought that boded well for them finding the house.
They kept walking, Kai good for an endless stream of conversation, and as the sun began to set, Jason found he was out of breath. His tongue felt like leather as it stuck to the roof of his mouth, and the lunch they had brought had been eaten hours ago. Moody had argued that they should turn around and head back, but Jason had finally vocalized that this could mean they were going to find the house instead of an empty lot.
He was hopeful right until they got what they wanted
When the sun began to go down, Wiley knit his brows together.
“I thought you and your friends were only in the woods for a few hours?”
Jason shook his head slowly, “We were, and we weren't. The time on the camera says we walked for eight hours before I turned it off, but when I got picked up by the side of the road, it was barely noon.”
Wiley pursed his lips, “How is that possible?”
The video cut out, the battery in the camera having been exhausted, and Jason nodded at the screen.
“Those batteries have a max life of three hours. Dad said it was the best battery they had when he ordered it for me, and it was pretty expensive. There's no way one of those batteries could have recorded for eight hours, but it did.”
The recording came back on, and Wiley was shocked to see that they were standing on the lawn of an old Gothic mansion. The sun setting behind the house made a perfect backdrop for the shot, and the boys were oooing and ahhing appreciatively. None of them seemed to believe what they were seeing, the whole thing a little otherworldly, and there seemed to be some argument about who was going to approach the house first.
“Is that,” Wiley stopped to wet his lips,” it can't be. The Makaro House burned down hundreds of years ago.”
“But there it is,” Jason said, his eyes still fixed on the wall, “in all its glory.”
And oh, what glory there had been in it.
Moody had gawped at the house as he had never seen one before.
“No way, there is no way.”
“That's impossible,” Kai breathed, “that house burned to the ground before our father's fathers were even thought of.”
“But there it is,” Jason said, mirroring his later statement, though he could not know it, “in all its glory.”
As the sun set behind it, Jason thought it looked even spookier than it would at night. The mansion rose like an obelisk towards the sky, its towered roofs looking naked without flags or pinions. The boys stood at the edge, trying to shame or bluster one of the others into going there first, but in the end, Jason took the first step. The others looked surprised at his boldness, but they followed closely after, not wanting to be thought less of.
Jason expected the house to disintegrate as he approached, an illusion or a trick of the light, but as his foot came to rest on the boards of the old house, he felt their solidity and continued to climb.
When the doors opened for them, the broad double doors swinging jauntily on their hinges, the three boys pulled back as they prepared to run.
The camera captured their indecision, the portal yawning wide as it waited to receive them, and Jason seemed to surprise even himself as he came forward to investigate it.
“Jason, What if it's a trap?”
“This whole place shouldn't exist, and if you think I'm going to pass up the chance to explore it, you're wrong."
Jason went in, pausing just inside the doors as if waiting for them to crash shut.
When they didn't, Moody followed him and Kai brought up the rear.
Makaro House lived up to its Gothic exterior, the inside full of soft dark velvet and antique furniture. There was a fire burning in the hearth inside the sitting room, tables spread with books in the library, and as they came up the long hall that led towards what was undoubtedly a dining room, Jason began to smell something. It was something like a stew or maybe a roast, and the smell of meat brought them to the dining room. A long table sat in the middle, eight chairs on each side of it, and at the end sat a wrinkled old man eating soup from a bowl.
It was hard to tell before they had gotten close, but the old man looked like he might be Native American. He was dressed in hides, feathers adorning his head and necklace, and he wore a beaded necklace with bones and claws on it. He looked up as they approached, glowering at them evenly, before returning to his meal. He ignored the boys, all three standing back apprehensively before Jason found the courage to speak.
“Excuse me, sir. Is this your house?”
The spoon froze on the way to his mouth, and the old man looked like he'd been slapped.
“My house?” he asked, his voice sounding thin and whispery, “No, child, but it was paid for by my people. We paid with our blood, we paid with our lives, and in the end, the cost was high. I took some of that cost from the previous owner of this home, and now it's only me who lives here.”
Kai made an uncomfortable noise in his throat, like a dog trying to tell its owner that something wasn't safe, and Jason understood the feeling.
“Well, we'll leave you to it then. We didn't mean to,”
“Leave?” the old man said, sounding amused, “oh no. No one leaves Makaro House until they've played the game. It was always a way for our warriors to test their metal, and I have so longed to see it played again. Will you join me? If not, I'm afraid you might find it quite hard to leave.”
Moody took a step back, and Jason heard his heavy footsteps on the carpet as he tried to retreat.
“What's the game?” Jason asked, figuring they could outrun this old coyote if it came down to it.
Jason would wonder why he had thought of him that way, but he didn't have time to ponder it then.
“Choose your piece from my necklace,” the old man said, slipping it off and laying it on the table, “Claw, Talon, or Fang.”
“Then what?” Moody asked, Kai moving behind him as if afraid to come too close.
“Then we start the game.” the old man said, smiling toothily.
For an old man, he certainly had a lot of sharp teeth.
“Okay,” Moody said, walking forward as Kai followed in his wake, “I choose claw.”
“Talon,” said Kai, reaching out to touch it.
“Fang,” said Jason, and as he put his hand out, he felt a sudden, violent shifting in his guts.
He was shrinking, the world moving rapidly all around him. He was smaller, but also more than he was, and he was trapped. His legs scrabbled at the thing that held him, and he tore it to pieces as he freed himself. He heard a loud roar and something big rose up before him. The bear was massive, ragged bits of something hanging from him, and Jason was afraid that he would kill him before he could get fully free of his snare. Something screeched then, flying at the bear's face and attacking him. Jason saw blood run down the snout of the bear, and as it tried to get the bird, a large hawk, off its face, Jason circled and looked for an opening. He was low, on all fours, and he could smell the hot blood as it coursed down the bear's muzzle. Blood and meat and fear and desire mingled in him, and as something laughed, he turned and saw a large coyote sitting at the table. Its grin was huge, its snout longer than any snout had a right to be, and he was laughing in a strange half-animal/half-man way.
The hawk suddenly fell before Jason, twitching and gasping as it died, and he knew the time to strike was now.
Jason leaped on the bear, its arms trying to crush him but not able to find purchase. He sank his teeth into the bear's throat, and for a moment he was afraid he wouldn't make it through all that thick fur. The bear tried to bring its claws to bear, but as the wolf worried at it with its fangs, he was rewarded with a mouth full of hot blood. The bear kept trying to rake him with its claws, but its movements were becoming less coordinated. When it fell, the whole room shook with the sound of its thunder, and Jason rolled off it as it lay still.
“Bravo, bravo,” cried the coyote, clapping its paws together in celebration, “Well fought, young wolf, well fought.”
Jason took a step towards him, but suddenly he was falling. It was as if a whirlpool had opened up beneath him and he was being sucked into it. Jason thrashed and snarled, trying to get his balance, but he was powerless against the pull as it flung him down and into the depths of some strange and terrible abyss.
He came to in the empty clearing where the house had been, and that was where he found his friends.
Wiley rewound the tape, not quite sure what to make of this.
“So this strange man offered to play a game, and then he changed you three into animals?”
Jason nodded, looking like one of those birds that dip into a glass of water, “I picked Fang, so I was the wolf. The game wasn't fair, we didn't know what we were doing, but I still killed Moody. I killed both of them because I had been the one to approach the house first. I killed them when I agreed to play the game. It's my fault, I'm a murderer.”
Wiley wasn't so sure, but it was hard to argue with the evidence. The video showed Jason dropping the camera and then suddenly there was a lot of snarling and screeching. Wiley heard the animals fighting, but he heard something else too. Something was laughing, really having a good belly chuckle, and it sounded like a hyena. He couldn't see it, it was all lost amongst the carpet, but suddenly that carpet had turned into grass, and the camera was lying outside in the midday sun. Someone got up, someone sobbed and moaned out in negation, and then they walked away.
That was where the video ended.
In the end, Jason was sent for psychiatric evaluation and the whole thing was chalked up to a drug-induced episode. Jason and his friends were drugged by an old man in the woods and while under the influence of an unknown substance, a substance that didn't show up on any toxicology screening, they killed each other. Blood was found on Jason, blood belonging to Marshall Moody, but blood from the fingernails of Moody was determined to belong to Kai Dillon, which really helped push the narrative that Detective Wiley was working with. He told the press to report an old man in the woods who was drugging people and pushed the stranger danger talks a little harder than usual that year on school visits.
After that day, the tape he took from Jason Weeks was never seen again, but Wiley believed that the boys had run up against something they weren't prepared for. When John Makaro had led the extermination of the Native People that dwelt on his land, he had angered something he wasn't prepared for either. Wiley's grandmother had liked to tell stories about Coyote, the trickster god, and how he could be as fierce as he was cunning when he needed to be. Wiley didn't think they would ever find an old man out there in the woods, but he didn't doubt others would find him.
Coyote liked his games, especially when the players were people he saw as interlopers.
Makaro House remained a town legend, and Wiley had little doubt that those foolish enough to enter would be presented with the same game these three boys had been given.
Wiley shuddered to think how the next challenge might go when Coyote needed more amusement.
Makaro House
“This is Jay, Moody, and Kai, and today we are searching for Makaro House.”
submitted by Erutious to HorrorEntertainmentLG [link] [comments]

2024.05.23 10:49 Erutious Makaro House

“This is Jay, Moody, and Kai, and today we are searching for Makaro House.”
The video was shot in shaky cam, the footage hard to watch without getting a little seasick. Officer Wiley, Detective Wiley now, had seen a lot in his time on the force, but a double homicide perpetrated by this fourteen-year-old kid in front of him was something he hoped he would never see. A double homicide, and carried out against two of his best friends, at that. The two kids in question, Marshal Moody and Kai Dillon, had been friends with Jason Weeks since elementary school, and there had never been any reports of violence or any other alarming behavior, at least none reported to the police. The boys had operated a YouTube channel, JMK Occult, for the last two years, and while their content was pretty typical for kids online, they had been uploading steadily every week since their first video about a strange deer in the North Woods around Cadderly.
Hell, Wiley even watched their stuff sometimes when he was bored.
People in the community knew them, and this was out of character for any of them.
Wiley paused the video, the three boys blundering through the South Woods and chattering like a pack of squirrels, and looked at Jason.
Jason, Jay to his friends, looked like he had aged a decade. He had a gaunt look usually reserved for soldiers who come back from war. His hair had been long and blonde for as long as anyone had known him, but the kid sitting here now was as bald as an egg and his scalp looked scoured instead of shaved. The shirt he had been wearing in the video was gone. He was still wearing the ring of it around his neck, the stretched fabric like a collar, and the jeans he wore were stained and ragged in places that looked fresh. He'd been found with no shoes or socks, but he was wearing the orange flip-flops of a jail resident now.
Wiley knew his parents wanted to bail him out, but he wasn't sure if the judge was going to extend him bail or not, given the nature of his crime.
The way those kids had been ripped apart was something that would haunt him for a long time.
“So, Jason, Officer Russel tells me that someone picked you up beside the road and you told them that your friends were dead and that you had killed them. Is that true?”
Jason nodded, not speaking a word as he continued to stare at the wall.
The woman in question was Darla Hughes, a mother of three who had stopped when she saw a young teenage boy walking on the side of the road in the state he was currently in. Stories of kidnapping and kids held in basements for months while God knew what happened to them were clear in the public consciousness. Darla thought she had found some kid who had escaped his situation, and when she stopped to help him, she said the poor lamb had said eight words and then nothing else.
“He said, my friends are dead, and I killed them.”
They had found the kids in a clearing in the woods about three miles in, a site he was familiar with.
How many times had he and his friends gone looking for the Makaro House?
Everyone in Cadderly knew about Makaro House, and most people's childhoods had been spent looking for it. John Makaro, a prominent figure in Cadderly's history, had been a prominent importer and exporter in England. He had come to America before the Revolutionary War to try to set up a similar business here, and Cadderly had been a large enough port to satisfy his needs without being so big that a new face would be lost. He established a manor in the South Woods, despite being told that it was Indian Land, and the bill of sale did very little to dispatch the native tribe that was living there. He survived two raids by the natives somehow, but his wife and daughter were not so lucky the second time. As such, he rallied a mob of townspeople to go into the woods and help him flush out the natives who were living there. The raid took weeks, but by the end, they had killed or scattered every member of the tribe that lived there.
Satisfied, Mr. Makaro built his lavish estates there, but strange things surrounded it from the first. Workers went missing, people reported strange lights and sounds after dark, and a shriveled figure in skins and feathers could be seen lurking after moonrise. Animals on the property acted strangely, and sometimes people found wolves or bears on the grounds. Usually, they were in a rage, but sometimes they simply fled as if they had been drawn there and weren't sure what to do now that they were. Once the house was finished, John Makaro had a hard time keeping staff. None of the hands he had hired to keep his livestock would stay more than a week, and they all refused to stay on the property after dark. His servants would likewise disappear suddenly, and none of them would stay at night besides his butler, who had been with him for years. People said that Mr. Makaro talked about hearing chanting in the house and seeing strange shadows, and when even his butler disappeared one evening, John locked the doors and stayed in the house alone for a long time. People who came to see him said he could be seen wandering the halls like a ghost, calling out for people only he could see.
When his mansion was seen in full blaze one night, those who were first on the scene said they saw a lone man silhouetted in the flames, his feathers and skins on full display.
He disappeared when they got close, but he had been seen by many in the years to come.
“What did you see out there, Jason?”
Jason continued to stare at the wall.
“I wanna help you, kid, but you have to help yourself first.”
He couldn't help but glance down at the kid's fingers as he left them splayed on that table like sleeping spiders. The nails were dirty, the beds crusty with something like blood, and several of them were torn and ragged. There was grime around his mouth too, and Wiley would have bet his next paycheck that it wasn't a Kool-aid ring. It looked like mud or paint, but it was probably blood.
Jason remained silent as the grave.
“Jason, none of us believe that you killed your friends. You,”
“You're wrong,”
Wiley had been fiddling with the remote, trying not to look at the kid's hands, but when he spoke, he looked up. Jason was still staring at the wall, but his head was shaking as his teeth chattered together. The kid looked like he was staring into the mouth of hell instead of the creme-colored wall of the interrogation room. Wiley almost didn't want to ask him what he had seen, but he needed to know. He needed to know how this kid had killed two other kids, one of whom was bigger than him by a head and sixty pounds.
“Would you like to elaborate?” Wiley asked.
He didn't think the kid would for a minute, but finally, he just reached slowly and pushed play on the remote. He kept looking at Wiley like he thought he might slap his hand, but when he let him get all the way across the table unsmacked, he relaxed a little. The video went on as they walked through the woods, joking and laughing as the woods lived their quiet existence around them.
“We went in at eight, just after Kai's mom went to work. She wouldn't have liked us going into the South Woods, but we wanted to investigate Makaro House. We wanted to do it for our first episode, but Moody said it was something we should work up to. The Makaro House was something big, and we needed to be ready for it. Turned out we weren't.”
On the screen, the kids kept walking through the woods, checking their compass and making their way carefully through the thick brush. They were still chattering, talking about what they might find when they got there, and whether they would find the clearing or see the mysterious mansion that people talked about sometimes. Legend said that a ghostly manor appeared in the clearing sometimes, the ghost of the house and that people who went inside were never seen again. Wiley didn't believe that, but as a kid, he had to admit that the clearing where the house had sat was spooky. All the wood had long ago rotted, the stones taken away for use in other things, but the land just felt wrong. Wiley had never been there after dark, but people claimed to hear footsteps and see things after the sun went down.
Wiley pushed fast forward on the tape and watched as the kids plodded on and on.
Jason wished that he could have sped through that part of the trip.
They had set out at eight, waving to Kai's mom as she pulled out of the driveway. The packs had been pulled out of the garage after she was down the road a piece, and the three set out for the woods. They knew the rough direction of the Makaro House, but no one really came upon it in the same way. Danny Foster had said it was a three-mile walk from the forest's edge to the property, but Jamie had claimed that he and his friends had walked for what seemed like hours.
“When we found it, though,” he said, “we found the house instead of an empty lot. We kept daring each other to go in, but we left when someone lit a fire on the grounds.”
Jason and his friends were hoping to find the house instead of the lot, and as their walk turned into a hike, Kai stopped and looked at the compass.
“We should have gotten there by now.”
Moody chuckled, “Maybe we're going in the wrong direction.”
“Can't be,” Kai protested, “The directions are to go south into the south woods for three miles. Then you'll come to the clearing where Makaro House once sat.”
Jason didn't want to jinx it, but at the time he thought that boded well for them finding the house.
They kept walking, Kai good for an endless stream of conversation, and as the sun began to set, Jason found he was out of breath. His tongue felt like leather as it stuck to the roof of his mouth, and the lunch they had brought had been eaten hours ago. Moody had argued that they should turn around and head back, but Jason had finally vocalized that this could mean they were going to find the house instead of an empty lot.
He was hopeful right until they got what they wanted
When the sun began to go down, Wiley knit his brows together.
“I thought you and your friends were only in the woods for a few hours?”
Jason shook his head slowly, “We were, and we weren't. The time on the camera says we walked for eight hours before I turned it off, but when I got picked up by the side of the road, it was barely noon.”
Wiley pursed his lips, “How is that possible?”
The video cut out, the battery in the camera having been exhausted, and Jason nodded at the screen.
“Those batteries have a max life of three hours. Dad said it was the best battery they had when he ordered it for me, and it was pretty expensive. There's no way one of those batteries could have recorded for eight hours, but it did.”
The recording came back on, and Wiley was shocked to see that they were standing on the lawn of an old Gothic mansion. The sun setting behind the house made a perfect backdrop for the shot, and the boys were oooing and ahhing appreciatively. None of them seemed to believe what they were seeing, the whole thing a little otherworldly, and there seemed to be some argument about who was going to approach the house first.
“Is that,” Wiley stopped to wet his lips,” it can't be. The Makaro House burned down hundreds of years ago.”
“But there it is,” Jason said, his eyes still fixed on the wall, “in all its glory.”
And oh, what glory there had been in it.
Moody had gawped at the house as he had never seen one before.
“No way, there is no way.”
“That's impossible,” Kai breathed, “that house burned to the ground before our father's fathers were even thought of.”
“But there it is,” Jason said, mirroring his later statement, though he could not know it, “in all its glory.”
As the sun set behind it, Jason thought it looked even spookier than it would at night. The mansion rose like an obelisk towards the sky, its towered roofs looking naked without flags or pinions. The boys stood at the edge, trying to shame or bluster one of the others into going there first, but in the end, Jason took the first step. The others looked surprised at his boldness, but they followed closely after, not wanting to be thought less of.
Jason expected the house to disintegrate as he approached, an illusion or a trick of the light, but as his foot came to rest on the boards of the old house, he felt their solidity and continued to climb.
When the doors opened for them, the broad double doors swinging jauntily on their hinges, the three boys pulled back as they prepared to run.
The camera captured their indecision, the portal yawning wide as it waited to receive them, and Jason seemed to surprise even himself as he came forward to investigate it.
“Jason, What if it's a trap?”
“This whole place shouldn't exist, and if you think I'm going to pass up the chance to explore it, you're wrong."
Jason went in, pausing just inside the doors as if waiting for them to crash shut.
When they didn't, Moody followed him and Kai brought up the rear.
Makaro House lived up to its Gothic exterior, the inside full of soft dark velvet and antique furniture. There was a fire burning in the hearth inside the sitting room, tables spread with books in the library, and as they came up the long hall that led towards what was undoubtedly a dining room, Jason began to smell something. It was something like a stew or maybe a roast, and the smell of meat brought them to the dining room. A long table sat in the middle, eight chairs on each side of it, and at the end sat a wrinkled old man eating soup from a bowl.
It was hard to tell before they had gotten close, but the old man looked like he might be Native American. He was dressed in hides, feathers adorning his head and necklace, and he wore a beaded necklace with bones and claws on it. He looked up as they approached, glowering at them evenly, before returning to his meal. He ignored the boys, all three standing back apprehensively before Jason found the courage to speak.
“Excuse me, sir. Is this your house?”
The spoon froze on the way to his mouth, and the old man looked like he'd been slapped.
“My house?” he asked, his voice sounding thin and whispery, “No, child, but it was paid for by my people. We paid with our blood, we paid with our lives, and in the end, the cost was high. I took some of that cost from the previous owner of this home, and now it's only me who lives here.”
Kai made an uncomfortable noise in his throat, like a dog trying to tell its owner that something wasn't safe, and Jason understood the feeling.
“Well, we'll leave you to it then. We didn't mean to,”
“Leave?” the old man said, sounding amused, “oh no. No one leaves Makaro House until they've played the game. It was always a way for our warriors to test their metal, and I have so longed to see it played again. Will you join me? If not, I'm afraid you might find it quite hard to leave.”
Moody took a step back, and Jason heard his heavy footsteps on the carpet as he tried to retreat.
“What's the game?” Jason asked, figuring they could outrun this old coyote if it came down to it.
Jason would wonder why he had thought of him that way, but he didn't have time to ponder it then.
“Choose your piece from my necklace,” the old man said, slipping it off and laying it on the table, “Claw, Talon, or Fang.”
“Then what?” Moody asked, Kai moving behind him as if afraid to come too close.
“Then we start the game.” the old man said, smiling toothily.
For an old man, he certainly had a lot of sharp teeth.
“Okay,” Moody said, walking forward as Kai followed in his wake, “I choose claw.”
“Talon,” said Kai, reaching out to touch it.
“Fang,” said Jason, and as he put his hand out, he felt a sudden, violent shifting in his guts.
He was shrinking, the world moving rapidly all around him. He was smaller, but also more than he was, and he was trapped. His legs scrabbled at the thing that held him, and he tore it to pieces as he freed himself. He heard a loud roar and something big rose up before him. The bear was massive, ragged bits of something hanging from him, and Jason was afraid that he would kill him before he could get fully free of his snare. Something screeched then, flying at the bear's face and attacking him. Jason saw blood run down the snout of the bear, and as it tried to get the bird, a large hawk, off its face, Jason circled and looked for an opening. He was low, on all fours, and he could smell the hot blood as it coursed down the bear's muzzle. Blood and meat and fear and desire mingled in him, and as something laughed, he turned and saw a large coyote sitting at the table. Its grin was huge, its snout longer than any snout had a right to be, and he was laughing in a strange half-animal/half-man way.
The hawk suddenly fell before Jason, twitching and gasping as it died, and he knew the time to strike was now.
Jason leaped on the bear, its arms trying to crush him but not able to find purchase. He sank his teeth into the bear's throat, and for a moment he was afraid he wouldn't make it through all that thick fur. The bear tried to bring its claws to bear, but as the wolf worried at it with its fangs, he was rewarded with a mouth full of hot blood. The bear kept trying to rake him with its claws, but its movements were becoming less coordinated. When it fell, the whole room shook with the sound of its thunder, and Jason rolled off it as it lay still.
“Bravo, bravo,” cried the coyote, clapping its paws together in celebration, “Well fought, young wolf, well fought.”
Jason took a step towards him, but suddenly he was falling. It was as if a whirlpool had opened up beneath him and he was being sucked into it. Jason thrashed and snarled, trying to get his balance, but he was powerless against the pull as it flung him down and into the depths of some strange and terrible abyss.
He came to in the empty clearing where the house had been, and that was where he found his friends.
Wiley rewound the tape, not quite sure what to make of this.
“So this strange man offered to play a game, and then he changed you three into animals?”
Jason nodded, looking like one of those birds that dip into a glass of water, “I picked Fang, so I was the wolf. The game wasn't fair, we didn't know what we were doing, but I still killed Moody. I killed both of them because I had been the one to approach the house first. I killed them when I agreed to play the game. It's my fault, I'm a murderer.”
Wiley wasn't so sure, but it was hard to argue with the evidence. The video showed Jason dropping the camera and then suddenly there was a lot of snarling and screeching. Wiley heard the animals fighting, but he heard something else too. Something was laughing, really having a good belly chuckle, and it sounded like a hyena. He couldn't see it, it was all lost amongst the carpet, but suddenly that carpet had turned into grass, and the camera was lying outside in the midday sun. Someone got up, someone sobbed and moaned out in negation, and then they walked away.
That was where the video ended.
In the end, Jason was sent for psychiatric evaluation and the whole thing was chalked up to a drug-induced episode. Jason and his friends were drugged by an old man in the woods and while under the influence of an unknown substance, a substance that didn't show up on any toxicology screening, they killed each other. Blood was found on Jason, blood belonging to Marshall Moody, but blood from the fingernails of Moody was determined to belong to Kai Dillon, which really helped push the narrative that Detective Wiley was working with. He told the press to report an old man in the woods who was drugging people and pushed the stranger danger talks a little harder than usual that year on school visits.
After that day, the tape he took from Jason Weeks was never seen again, but Wiley believed that the boys had run up against something they weren't prepared for. When John Makaro had led the extermination of the Native People that dwelt on his land, he had angered something he wasn't prepared for either. Wiley's grandmother had liked to tell stories about Coyote, the trickster god, and how he could be as fierce as he was cunning when he needed to be. Wiley didn't think they would ever find an old man out there in the woods, but he didn't doubt others would find him.
Coyote liked his games, especially when the players were people he saw as interlopers.
Makaro House remained a town legend, and Wiley had little doubt that those foolish enough to enter would be presented with the same game these three boys had been given.
Wiley shuddered to think how the next challenge might go when Coyote needed more amusement.
Makaro House
“This is Jay, Moody, and Kai, and today we are searching for Makaro House.”
submitted by Erutious to Erutious [link] [comments]

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