This week’s Tuesday: Picture Poll winner, is Creepy House. 

 

“Well, the good news is, I guess we don’t actually need to clean up. I mean honestly, what’s the point?” Ellie said, as she pushed the hair away from her face with her wrist and proceeded to get up off the ground and take off the rubber dishwashing gloves.

“Valid,” Jason agreed as he put the dustbin and broom down for a minute, the sound of broken ceramic moving inside the bin was unmistakable and he swore he could also distinctly hear the teeth that were mixed in. He picked up what he had hoped had been the beer he opened 6 hours ago, “Holy shit that tastes good.”

“Was there actually any left?” Ellie asked hopeful, as she was already on her way to the kitchen.

Bingo.

She walked back into the living room, and sat next to Jason as she popped off the bottle cap with a rogue lighter she found sitting next to a soft pack of Marlboro Lights  on the floor. She picked up the pack of smokes, too and looked at Jason who was now staring at her.

“Seriously? After everything that just happened you’re going to give me that look?”

“Nope… you do what you need to do, Ellie.”

Ellie took one of the cigarettes out and held it just under her nose and breathed in the sweet smell of tobacco. She had quit smoking 5 weeks ago today and had honestly thought it was out of her system. As she smelled the friendly scent of her old vice, she looked around the room and took stock of just what had happened.

“Fuck it, ” she said as she put the cigarette to her lips and lit up. Jason sat next to her on the love seat with his head back looking up at the ceiling. He was beginning a slow, soft hysterical laughter.

“Well that escalated quickly,” he said with an uncomfortable smile.

“Sure did,” Ellie agreed as she looked at her blood soaked fingernails.

“Wait, wait, wait. Did you just quote Anchorman, Jason?” Matt asked as he came in the room with a pint-sized glass of Crown Royal.

“It felt appropriate.” Jason replied as he finished off his beer and headed to the kitchen for another one. He passed Stacey and Mike who had just come up from the basement where they had their special brew reserve. They were bringing up the lot of them.

“No way, man. Today, we drink the good stuff,” Mike said as he physically turned Jason around and marched him back to the living room. As they headed for the sectional couch, he stopped to kick one of the bodies out of the way, “Fucker.”

“Hey Laurie, get out here!” Ellie called to her.

“Yup, one second! I’m just Instagramming the one I killed in the tub. Don is gonna freak out when he sees this!” Laurie yelled out as she was putting the final framing around the photo that she took. She chose the 1977 filter for the vintage kill effect.

Once Laurie got in the room, Mike opened up 6 of the bottles containing the aptly named, ‘Triple Threat IPA’. This was meant to be the final beer tasted as they held a party for their nearest and dearest to announce their plan to start a small home brewery business called, ‘Space Station Brews’.

“Well, sa-motherfuckin-lut everyone,” Stacey, who maybe cursed 4 times a year, said as she held her bottle up for everyone to toast.

Everyone sat in silence for what seemed like 10 minutes, but was actually only about 26 seconds, running through what had just happened in their minds.

“Ok, so let’s skip the obvious question of how this happened, and go right to the next question of what we’re going to do next,” Jason started.

They each looked around the room at their kills. Tiny little hands still grasping knives, severed from their small bodies. Distorted little faces filled with so much rage and anger as they lie decapitated next to random torsos. There was so much blood.

“Normally I’d say let’s handle this the Sean of the Dead way and just try to go out there and blend in, but these aren’t like any zombies I’ve ever prepared for in all of my zombie movie watching training,” Matt said as he took a big swig of Crown from his glass. 

“And did you guys see that they can fly? I mean…what the fuck is that all about?” Stacey added, now that she had broken the cursing barrier.

“I don’t know…,” Laurie started, “I think we can take them. When was the last time anyone looked outside?”

Mike went over to the window and carefully looked out on the lawn. He still couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

“I count 26 of them,” Mike said as he turned back around and headed back to the couch.

“Well there’s 6 of us. We managed to take out these guys pretty quickly once we realized what was happening and how to kill them,” Laurie said.

After the first 5 or so kills, Ellie had discovered that the power was in their hats. Once the hat was removed, they turned to stone. The problem was, they worked as an organized team and knew when one of their own had been rendered powerless. They had extra hats with them, and were ruthless when getting one of their team back in the game. And they were fast. Fast, and mean.

“Fuck it,” Stacey said. “Let’s do this.”

“I’m with Stacey, ” Ellie said as she stood up and pounded the rest of her beer, “And seriously you guys, this brew is incredible. You should make this one your signature beer.”

“Right?” Mike said as he was pulling his hair back in a ponytail, “I told you, babe. That’s the one.” He gave Stacey a kiss on the cheek.

Knives in hand, they stood at the door.

“Ready?” Jason said.

Everyone nodded He took a deep breath, and opened the door.

 

 

 

That concludes this week’s Smoke-Long Stories of the Picture Poll. I actually took this week’s winning photo from a train I was taking to Sundsvall, Sweden. We were stopped on the tracks for a few minutes and I looked out the window and saw that house. It looked both peaceful, and incredibly creepy at the same time, especially with the fresh snow on the ground. 

If you’re confused, please check The Rides where the concept of the picture poll and smoke-long stories of the picture poll are explained.

Also, I incorporated the number 26 in the story, both in the title, and as another time reference and for the number of zombie garden gnomes awaiting everyone outside. This was today’s Daily Prompt. To incorporate the number 26 into your post….so double booya!