“Criminal Impacted, or ‘Rampants,’ as most have started calling them, defy all the expectations about what we thought criminally involved super-abled individuals would be like. Contrary to what most movies and TV shows seemed to imply, they’re far from invincible by the common folk. Statistically, their life expectancy while undertaking dangerous criminal activities is less than half of that of non-Impacted folks. Most of them remain quite vulnerable to mortal wounds, it turns out.”

“I don’t like this,” I said as I stared right in front of me.

“I have to admit, this does look spooky,” Alison said with a whistle.

The surrounding plot of land was filled with tall yellow grass, in which a large amount of random junk seemed to make up for the lack of fauna. The hedges surrounding the entire trashy jungle were in no better state. Vines and bramble covered most of what had probably once been a green trimmed bush, and dark holes in the foliage seemed to cover the few places it didn’t. The two-stories house in the center was even more disturbing. Where the surroundings felt mostly trashy and maybe a bit concerning, the decrepit building inside gave off an aura of pure terror. The walls were covered in dark graffiti, most of which mentioned “ghosts” and “monsters,” and the door and windows were boarded up. A few of the tiles had fallen with time, and incredibly enough, the chimney seemed to have been blown off.

“Have you seen that movie…” Alison started. “Monster house?”

“That 3D thing with the kids fighting a house with dynamite?” I asked back.

“Yeah… well, that house had nothing on this one,” she said.

I nodded. This one looked positively haunted. Not the kind of haunted you’d see in movies, this one was more like those places you’d see in criminal investigation shows where they’d show pictures of an abandoned cult house that had everyone in it kill themselves in the name of some crazy god.

“So, how do we get in?” I asked.

“Let’s check out the back before we make a decision,” Alison said.

We made our way through the tall grass, periodically stepping on crunchy junk and god knows what. When we reached the back, we were pleased to find a non-barred wooden door covered in vegetation. Alison smirked at the sight.

“This looks more promising,” Alison said with satisfaction.

I stood in fearful fascination as Alison slowly made her way to the back door.

“Wait,” I finally caught my bearings. “You didn’t answer. How do you plan on getting in?”

“Well, like in any other haunted house,” Alison replied with a shrug. “We ask to be let in politely. And if it fails, we’ve both got some good experience with busting doors open.”

“Asking to be let in? Seriously?” I asked in stupefaction. “Isn’t that going to warn them we’re coming or something?”

“Because breaking down the door wouldn’t?” she shot back, turning her head to face me in her bike helmet.

“No, but we could try to… I don’t know… Pick the lock or something,” I said tentatively.

“Do you know how to pick a lock?” Alison asked with a quirk of her brow.

“No, but…” I trailed off. She was right about that. Before breaking the door down, there might be some incredibly slim chance that the occupants would be in better spirits—heh—if we simply knocked like civilized people.

Alison turned her head back towards the door and knocked three times in rapid succession.

Nothing.

After waiting for almost half a minute, I was about to open my mouth to suggest she summoned a tool, but my voice got cut off by the ominous sound of very rusty door hinges being used for the first time in a while.

My heartbeat picked up as my mind struggled to come up with a rational explanation for why there was no one behind the door that had just opened. I fucking hate ghosts.

In the dark hallway that greeted us, I could only make out the first few meters. The dark tint on my soldering mask wasn’t helping one bit with that either. I took out the flashlight Alison had given me earlier and tried shining it inside, only revealing a short hallway with two adjacent closed doors.

“So, after you?” I said with a wince.

“Feeling brave, aren’t we?” Alison asked. “The more durable of us should lead the way in, though.”

There was no ambiguity in her tone, so I simply gulped and strode forward, careful not to trip on the threshold.

The hallway was in no better state than the outside. Some of the walls were also covered in graffiti, and the floor was covered in dried mud and pebbles.

“Hello?” Alison called out from behind me, almost making me jump. “Anybody home? We’re here to talk about our lord and—”

I swatted at Alison’s helmet before she could finish her shitty joke.

“Stop being stupid! How can you be so flippant about this?”” I hissed. “Messing with them won’t get us anywhere. And I’m already stressed enough as is! We don’t know what lurks inside”.

“Flippette,” Alison whispered back.

“She was joking,” I tried calling out in a shaky voice. “We’re friendly, and we just want to talk.” I paused. “And we’re not the cops or the IHI. Or ghost hunters.”

“Bloody Mary! Bloody Mary! Bloo—” Alison started but was soon stopped by the punch I threw at her helmet.

“DON’T FUCKING DO THAT!” I whisper-yelled at her. “Why are you doing this now? I know you have casual outbursts of madwoman one-liners, but this is just careless!”

She tilted her head sideways as if what I had said had been the stupidest thing she’d heard in a long time. “Honestly? It’s fun. Messing with you… Relaxes me. Somehow, I doubt this is going to be anything dangerous anyway.”

“It’s setting me on edge. Please don’t do it again,” I said sternly.

She barely concealed a giggle and mimicked zipping a zip in front of her mouth on her visor.

I took a couple of steps on the creaky —of course— floorboard. Each step towards the first door sent shivers of anticipation running down my back. I slowly lifted my hand to turn the handle when Alison put a hand on my shoulder. I quickly turned my head at her in fear that it wouldn’t be her, but the budding feeling of a mini-heart attack was dispelled as I saw she had her index finger lifted in front of her visor.

I tilted my head in confusion and then followed the finger Alison pointed towards the ceiling. I tried focusing my hearing but could only hear the sounds of Alison’s leather jacket and the insects from outside.

Tap tap tap tap tap.

A series of distant muffled thumps resounded from the floor above. It sounded like someone or something was scurrying on wood planks. The realization sent a stab of fear into my guts, and I immediately looked towards the corner at the end of the hallway. After a few seconds of only hearing the deafening sound of my quickening heartbeat, I caught another series of thumping sounds coming from above, this time, closer.

I braced myself and lifted my palm towards Alison. She didn’t hesitate and placed one of her conjured nail guns in it. I warily tried not fumbling as I raised it next to the beam of my flashlight.

“Please show yourselves,” I tried calling out as confidently as I could. Then the thumping stopped.

“Be more assertive,” Alison whispered. “And watch your posture, like the other day.”

“Not the time, Alison,” I seethed.

The front door suddenly slammed shut.

“How cliché,” Alison said sarcastically.

She walked back a couple of steps and pressed down on the handle.

“It’s not even locked,” she said with a chuckle as she opened the door again.

The outside was as barren as it had been when we had entered the house. At least we’re not sandwiched. I tried comforting myself. If whatever opened the door isn’t behind us, that is…

I turned back to the hallway and carefully made my way towards the corner as slowly as possible. The hallway we stood in branched into a T shape, and our immediate left seemed to lead a couple meters further, with only one door. When I turned to the other hallway, I jumped and almost dropped my flashlight as I saw a pale shape vaguely resembling a thin humanoid. The instant I blinked, it disappeared.

“Fuck fuck fuck,” I swore. “No way. Fuck. This place is actually haunted.”

My heart rate was well into the triple digits now, and I was quickly swiping my flashlight in jerking motions at every nook and cranny the hallway had. What in the name of fuck was that thing?

“Calm down,” Alison said. She had obviously not seen what I had seen. “You’re probably way scarier than whatever lurks in there.”

“There was a thing, a ghost there,” I whispered, pointing at the end of the hallway with my nail gun.

I swallowed hard and tried to get my feelings under control. I carefully made a few more steps forwards, each eliciting a groaning whine from the old wooden floor until I reached the spot I had seen the shape in. It was a dead end. Or more precisely, there was a door that had previously been accessible at the end of the hallway. It was now barred with planks. I turned to Alison, who just shrugged as she summoned a crowbar.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“They already know we’re here, might as well be thorough with our investigation,” Alison said.

She jimmied her crowbar into the planks and pulled hard. After a few tugs, she managed to pry loose most of the wood, and within a minute, the door was fully accessible. I took a deep breath and braces myself as I turned the broken handle and pulled the door towards us.

“Hello,” came a distorted voice from behind the door.

“Ah!” I gasped and jumped back, accidentally firing my nail gun into the door frame. In front of me, behind the ajar door, stood a tall distorted humanoid living nightmare wearing a tattered green dress. It had long white limbs, and the smoothness of its ivory face was split in half by a toothless mouth.

“Hi,” Alison said in a casual tone. “We’re here for the roach infestation.”

“Hello,” the monster called again in its creepy distorted voice.

I involuntarily took a step back as it spoke. Firing the nail gun didn’t even register with my brain as I failed to form coherent thoughts beyond ‘fuck me, it’s a fucking monster.’

“Yes, you already said that,” Alison continued calmly, but her posture changed. She was on high alert now. “Do you have a name?”

“Hello,” the monster said again, taking another step.

This time I finally managed to catch my bearings enough to lift my nail gun at the thing’s head.

“Don’t take another step, or I’ll…” I started in a panic.

The monster cut me off as it suddenly lunged for me. I yelped as I fired a nail at its torso, to no avail. The monster tackled me with less force than I thought it would. Still, I tumbled to the ground with the beast on my chest, flailing my arms in the process. It swiped at me with a massive clawed hand. The instant its elongated fingers pierced my skin, it seemed to tense up and then suddenly dropped down and vanished into a powdery mist.

“Ouch,” I said as I reflexively clutched at the superficial wound. “What? What happened?”

“That was disappointing. I just threw a buzzsaw blade at it, and it just vanished. Poof,” Alison said. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I think,” I said as I struggled to get up. All the adrenaline pumping in my blood was sending spasms throughout my whole body. “What the F was that?”

“A construct, I think,” Alison said pensively. “A rather weak one at that.”

“A what?” I said as I scanned the surroundings for more.

“A construct, it’s like a summoned creature. The same thing as my tools, but with living stuff,” she helpfully provided.

“That thing looked scary as hell!” I exclaimed, not taking my eyes off of my surroundings.

“Well, not so much after it takes a blade to the face, right?”

I ignored the remark. “Do you think there’ll be more?”

“Yeah. I mean, I can conjure a buttload of these,” Alison said as she shook her nailgun for emphasis. “I bet whoever summoned that thing has more to offer.”

“I’m not super eager to find out what, though,” I said.

“Don’t be a baby. That thing barely hurt you. Now keep advancing. More enemies mean we’re going the right way.”

“I thought you said we’d first ask them if they were friendly before branding them enemies,” I remarked.

“Well, their answer is pretty obvious, isn’t it?” she said with a tilt of her head.

I gulped and turned my flashlight into the room that had stood behind the door. It looked like it had been a living room at some point, but what little furniture had been there seemed to have been either stolen or destroyed, as small pieces of wood were the only thing that jutted the floor. To my immediate left was an ominous staircase that lead into the dark upper floor.

I carefully scanned our surroundings with my flashlight, but there didn’t seem to be any sign of monster or human activity. All things considered, this place looked somewhat untouched for a place where an Impacted with the ability to summon monsters would live. Sure, the inside was trashed, but there was a thick layer of dust on the floor, and the room reeked of mold. I couldn’t see any traces of outside light permeating through the wooden blockade, but I could see a broken glass door that led to the vestibule. So we went through the whole ground floor, huh.

“So, do we check all the rooms downstairs, or do we go up?” I asked tensely.

“The sounds came from upstairs. We definitely check that out first,” she replied, motioning towards the gloomy wooden staircase ahead of us.

I gulped as I braced myself for another scary encounter, but this time my pulse was more or less under control. It feels like I get better at dealing with dangerous situations and overwhelming emotions with exposure. The rational part of my brain noted idly.

I tentatively pressed my foot down the first step to try and see whether the wood would hold my weight. I tried being as careful as I could while climbing each step one at a time, making sure to avoid the exact center of each plank, where the wood would be the most fragile. Tension rose in my guts as I neared the top of the stairs, but once I stepped high enough to see what laid in front of me, I could only see an empty carpeted hallway mirroring the one downstairs. Just as the floor below, this one was full of mud, and the walls’ wallpapers had been mostly stripped off. The only significant differences were the disposition of the doors and the lack of graffiti.

“Which way?” I whispered to Alison, who still stood right beside me.

“First door to the left, on the count of three, you push it open and enter with the nail gun. Shoot anything that’s got too many eyes or teeth,” she replied in a whisper. After a short pause, she whispered again. “Not including yourself.”

I somehow managed to not roll my eyes at her jab and proceeded to put the flashlight in one of my back-pockets as I braced for her countdown.

“Ready?” she asked quietly. “Three… Two…”

I heard a faint sound coming from behind the door that faced the one we were about to open. I swiftly lifted my left hand to cut her off before she got to three.

“Wait,” I whispered while nodding towards the other door. “Let’s try that one.”

“Alright,” she simply replied. “One… Two… Three!”

As she finished counting, I quickly turned the doorknob. My heart caught in my chest as I suddenly lunged forward, throwing the door open, only to end up face to face with another monstrosity. This one was bulkier than the last one, with thick forelimbs and a stout body. A smooth marble face bearing the same toothless mouth as the last one covered the entirety of its oval-shaped head. The creature was a poor simulacrum of a gorilla. As if it had been made by describing the animal’s rough shape to a blind artist. It also wore a tattered rag that looked like it could have been an oversized dress at some point. The sight was positively dreadful.

“AAAAH,” I screamed as I fired my nail gun wantonly.

Several of the nails clattered uselessly against the far wall. Luckily, though, Alison had been better prepared than me and immediately hurled a buzzsaw blade that flew way too close to my ear for comfort into the monster’s face. This one didn’t sit still, however, and swiped at the incoming projectile with one of its massive clawed fists. The blade was sent hurling towards the right wall and embedded itself a full decimeter into the wood. I didn’t hesitate and took the opportunity to fire my nail gun again, this time pelting the creature straight in the face and torso. This time I didn’t miss all the shots and the Burton-esque abomination stumbled backward with a dissonant moan. I kept pressing the trigger until the magazine was empty, and although the monster was on the floor, it still tried crawling away from me. I reflexively dropped the gun and extended a hand towards Alison, who immediately understood and handed me a massive ratchet wrench. I lifted the makeshift weapon above my head and struck down with as much force as I could muster on the beast’s skull.

“AAAAH,” a terrifying scream came from an adjacent room. I jumped back and stared at the door to my left that I hadn’t noticed until now in anticipation. My gaze darted back and forth between the door and the squirming monster on the ground while Alison started making for it, and I decided it was better to deal with the threat that stood closer to me.

I flung the wrench at the abomination’s head once more, this time eliciting a nasty cracking sound, but I once again jumped back when another yell resounded from right behind the door.

“NOOOO!” the voice yelled. It sounded clearly feminine and perhaps a bit high-pitched, though it was hard to be sure with everything that was going on around me.

I was about to hit a third and probably last time as the door in front of Alison flung open. To her credit, Alison didn’t flinch a muscle, and even though she was clearly prepared to do so, she didn’t immediately shoot at what stood in front of her. Or who, in this context.

In the barely lit doorway stood a young girl, no older than 12 or so, wearing a damaged pair of blue jeans and a baggy wool sweater. She looked sickly thin, and her skin was paler than any other human I had seen in my entire life. Her messy mop of brown hair looked quite dirty and looked as poorly maintained as her clothes. She held a square strip of wood in a shaky two-handed grasp. She was crying.

“Stop hurting her!” she cried out. “She didn’t do anything to you!”

I was taken aback. I looked at the barely moving massive creature at my feet warily. Although it looked like it was out of commission, that thing was a solid half-meter taller than me and easily twice as wide.

Alison and I stood frozen in stunned silence as neither of us managed to make sense of the situation. I kept my arm raised, and my vision darting between our two potential foes but decided on not trying to smash the gorilla’s skull in for now.

The girl didn’t seem to share our composure, though, as she clumsily swung her makeshift weapon toward Alison’s head. Alison quickly sidestepped and grabbed the girl’s hand as she swatted away the improvised bat.

The girl let out a yelp of surprise at losing her only weapon and stumbled to the ground. Alison quickly put her feet on the girl’s neck, although I didn’t think she was applying any pressure.

“Calm down. We won’t hurt it if It doesn’t try to attack like the other one,” Alison said in an unexpectedly gentle tone. “What’s your name, sweetie?”

“What? Who are you? Why are you doing this? I’m not telling you anything! Eat shit and die!” the girl spat as she failed to lift herself under Alison’s weight.

“Calm down,” Alison said as she grabbed her torch with her mouth to free her hands. She kneeled around the flailing teenager and pinned her wrists behind her back. “I won’t hurt you. Please calm down. Breathe.”

The girl bellowed and foamed, but her attempts to shake Alison’s hold were all met with failure. As I silently studied the scene, I reminded myself of the still very much alive monster at my feet. Should I pin it too? I thought as I looked at it. No, it’s definitely not getting up at this rate. Plus, considering its size, I’d rather keep a safe distance.

The girl’s yells seemed to have some effects on the beast, as it redoubled its efforts to get up, but I must have damage whatever it uses for a brain, though, as it still miserably failed.

“Calm down, I will let you go, just calm down,” Alison repeated. This time the girl seemed to give up and stopped struggling. “Okay,” Alison sighed. “I’m going to let you go, and you’re going to calm down, and we’ll have a nice chat, and everything will be good, alright? Look, my friend stopped hitting your little friend over there. Right, Steak?”

“Yeah…” I said. The fact that we were fighting a kid didn’t sit well with me. I wanted her to be free of Alison’s grasp as quickly as possible.

It was hard to tell in the poorly lit room, but the girl seemed to nod and heaved out a deep quivering breath.

Alison did as she promised and released her grip on the girl’s arm and stood up.

“Alright, you can get up, but no sudden movement,” she said. “I’m going to stand over there next to my colleague, and we’ll have a nice and friendly chat, and nobody will hit anything against nobody else’s skull.

A nagging feeling of guilt and shame at putting such a young girl through all this started bubbling in my guts. I lowered my wrench and tried appearing as unthreatening as I could as Alison carefully stepped back towards me.

“Okay. You can call me Toolbox and the idiot next to me, Steak. What’s your name, dear?” Alison asked in a sweet and reassuring voice.

“Don’t call me dear. You’re trespassing!” the girl hissed. I had to admit, she was really brave for her age—more than me at any rates—but her trembling legs betrayed the bite of her words.

“You’re right. That’s condescending,” Alison admitted in an unprecedented show of empathy. “Please, may I have your name? Or a nickname?”

“I…” the girl started before stopping herself. She was about to continue, but her gaze shifted to a point slightly to my left.

Before I could understand what was happening, an intense pain erupted from my back, and I felt the air draining from my lungs. My vision blurred, but I could see the tip of a metal blade protruding from between my ribs on my right pectoral. The pain felt like a wave of flames, and I collapsed to the ground, choking on blood. As I fell, I caught the moving shape of Alison conjuring something rather large and hurling it at whoever or whatever had stabbed me.

I had felt pain before, in the recent weeks, more than ever before in my life. But this felt incomparable. The area where the blade was stuck in me felt like millions of tiny hooks were pulling on every millimeter of my nociceptors. My eyes were closed, yet I could see white static. Sounds stopped registering as the only thing I could hear was the thumping of my blood in my ears. Time lost its relevance as the only thing I could experience was the pain. Something wet pooled out from my mouth, and only then did I take notice of the fact I hadn’t been breathing for the last few seconds.

Why am I not healing? I thought, more in concepts and instincts than actual coherent thoughts. My brain somehow managed to convey the fact that the blade was still embedded in me and that my body couldn’t find a way to deal with it. I tried yelling, but I quickly realized that I couldn’t move a muscle; worse, I couldn’t feel anything moving. I tried flailing my arm to unstick the blade from my back but failed miserably. The static in my field of vision seemed to intensify as everything else dulled, pain included, thankfully.

I was about to faint—or so I think— when something took hold of the knife and pulled hard. The world came back in an agonizing split second, and I felt the flesh inside of my body knit as quickly as it could.

I gasped for air and coughed hard as I inhaled blood and dust. I’m alive! Fuck. It hurts. Although I still felt a sharp pain in my back, my power proved to be truly helpful in reducing it quickly. Half a minute later, I was finally able to open my eyes and weakly turned to my back to look at the scene that had transpired while I was down.

I had expected one of the girls’ monster pets to be the culprit of my current state, but I was shocked to see another person on the ground, pinned by Alison, this time in a way more violent manner than with the girl. The person currently pinned down by Alison seemed to be a teenager around my age, maybe a bit younger. He was wearing shoddy clothes, like the girl, and he had a large bruise on his cheekbone. His hair was darker than the girl’s but in a similar filthy state. He was breathing heavily but looked like he was alive.

My head turned towards where the young girl had been standing earlier to find her missing. I looked around and quickly found her in front of her downed pet, with her makeshift bat back in her hand.

“Let him go!” she yelled. “I’m not afraid of you!”

“Calm down, he just stabbed my friend there,” Alison said, panting. “I just want to make sure he doesn’t try it again.”

Saying so, a zip tie appeared in her hand, and she proceeded to cuff the teenager as tight as she could.

“You’ll behave now, both of you,” Alison said in a commanding tone. “I’ll say this once. The next surprise attack or similar will end up in both of you dying. Is that clear?”

Neither of the kids replied.

“Is that clear?” Alison repeated, louder this time.

“Yes,” the girl said, slowly bringing her weapon down.

“Alright,” the boy spat. “Just don’t hurt her, or I swear to god I’ll take you down with me.”

“Brave. But foolish,” Alison said dispassionately. “Anyhow. It may appear as a surprise to you both, but we’re actually not here to hurt you. My partner and I are just investigating. Now, let’s all be grown-ups and talk this through, alright?”

“How do we know you’re not going to kill us for killing your friend?” the girl asked in a defiant tone, although a slight tinge of fear was audible. Wait, what?

“Well, that’s easy because he’s not dead,” Alison replied.

Although I had moved since I had fallen down, I stood opposite to where the flashlight was currently pointing. Said flashlight had apparently been dropped during the fight and now conveniently illuminated the area between the three of them. Four, if you count the gorilla-thing.

“Yeah,” I said with a wince. I coughed up the last bits of blood that blocked my lungs. “I’m still here.”

The girl jumped as she noticed me. “What… How?” she said in disbelief. I got up to my feet and slowly made for the flashlight and grabbed it, trying hard not to fall down from the feeling of light-headedness. I turned the beam towards my face and waved my other hand tiredly.

“How? What are you?” the boy said in horror. “You can’t get up from being stabbed in the heart!”

“Um, yeah, probably not. Good thing you missed, though,” I said.

“No way, the heart is right there, next to the spine, on the right side of the body…” the boy said in disbelief. “Oh.” The realization hit him. “… You were facing away from me… Wait. Still, with a wound like that, you shouldn’t even be walking, let alone talking!”

“As much as I enjoy the open communication thing we got going on,” Alison cut in. “I would like for all of us to take a deep breath and collectively calm down. I don’t want either of us sticking knives into anybody else. Are we all cool?”

We all silently nodded, and Alison sighed. “Alright,” she said. “I’m going to let go. I’m asking for the last time. Please don’t try anything, and we won’t hurt you.”

She slowly got up and stepped away from the boy, making sure to back all the way up to the wall, this time, so that she wouldn’t be caught off guard.

“Alright, you two,” Alison said. “Care to explain what all this is about?”