It’s what dreams are made of, they say. Apparently, it can be anything. A dream house. A dream car. A dream job. Even a dream life. At the end of the day, dreams aren’t always what they’re cracked up to be.
For newlyweds Matt and Margaret Mitchell, the dream is simple: a house, the new spot, as they like to call it. They’ve been watching it for months. Waiting and planning, now it’s finally time to handle business and meet up with the owner after work. Margaret takes the Civic while Matt follows behind in a loaner. A car they’re borrowing with pink seat covers and a fading Girl Power sticker on the bumper. He doesn’t mind, a car is a car after all, plus it makes him laugh when he thinks about people seeing that sticker on the back with a bearded man driving.
The radio cuts through the silence.
“Authorities are still searching for missing woman Charlotte Thompson, last seen at the Quick Stop gas station on the corner of Kroger and interstate 35 three weeks ago—”
“Nothing but positive vibes” Matt mutters and turns off the radio.
The grinning football player bobble-head on his dashboard wobbles in agreement. It was the last gift his father gave him before Matt’s mother killed him with an axe when he was just a child. He pulls up behind Margaret’s parked Civic next to a faded yellow Volkswagen Beetle. Animalistic eyes gaze from inside the house, beyond those old dusty curtains, something watches.
The place is definitely a fixer-upper and far worse up close. Peeling paint. Missing shingles. Dead trees clawing at the sky. Margaret steps around from the backyard, eyes bright like a child on Christmas morning. She sprints towards Matt, nearly knocking him down when she jumps into his arms.
“This is it.” She says with a child-like enthusiasm.
The front door creeks open, the silhouette of a tiny man waits beyond the light that barely strikes him. It’s Stanley Kirkman, a pinch of a man with a receding hairline, glasses slung over his face wearing a tucked in polo shirt and khakis. He’s always dressed that way ever since he was a child, in fact classmates used to call him little Jeffrey Dahmer. Being a nerdy kid who was the littlest guy in class made him hate school and his home town. So he had to leave and pursue other things you might say.
They approach him with smiles yet he makes no facial expression, just flicks at his nails and fidgets with his hands. Matt and Margaret reach out to shake hands.
“Stanley Kirkman." He says with a whimper.
“Hi, I’m Matt.” They shake “And this is my gorgeous old lady Margaret” Matt continues.
“I hate it when you call me that…I’m not old” Margaret responds, giving him the look of death.
Inside, the stagnant air hits immediately. Rot, damp, something worse. Margaret fans her face and covers mouth.
“Sorry about that, I forgot to close the window last time and I think a rat or something died in here. Haven’t been here in months.”
Around the corner in the kitchen they see it. A dead cat dried like an old piece of beef jerky.
“Oh” says Stanley, eyes growing wide and brow crunching.
He grabs the screw driver on the counter, sticks the cat in the side and drops it in the trash.
“If you don’t mind the basements this way?” Stanley gentility asks.
Margaret’s phone buzzes. She replies” Go ahead, I’ll be down in a minute.”
A message notification flashes:
Mom: Charlotte, please. Let us know you’re safe.
Margaret swipes it away.
Matt trails Stanley down the staircase. The air thickens in the bowels of the dark, dank basement saturated with the smell of death and mold. They freeze dead in their tracks. Dead rats hang by the neck from the ceiling. A pentagram is drawn with blood in the center of the room with a lit candle on each point and Charlotte Thompson’s severed head in the center. Eyes bulging brows crinkled Stanley backs into the wet dipping wall nearly tripping over Charlotte’s head. Matt slowly pulls a large ivory handled knife from his pants with a smile.
Stanley mutters “my God!”
He turns to run but stops.
Margaret stands at the top of the stairs. She wears a pink paper-mache mask decorated with flowers and hearts. In her hand: a machete, stained with dried blood. Matt pulls his own mask over his face. Black with white symbols and red tears streaking from its eyes. The dream house wasn’t for a living. It was for hunting.