Blackwood Academy

The Axe Man dragged his heavy axe down the stairs, one slow step at a time.

The blade scraped against the wooden steps with a high, ear-splitting screech, loud in the dead silence of the house. Every step he took shook the floor beneath their feet, the stench of blood and rot rolling off him in waves, thick enough to choke on.

Eli recognized him instantly. The man from the family portrait. The owner of the mansion. Abraham Black.

"RUN!"

Eli screamed the word on pure instinct, yanking Junior behind him and sprinting down the hall to the right of the foyer. Leah and Irene were right on his heels. Kane and Rex, broken by the sheer murderous rage rolling off the Axe Man, spun and sprinted in the opposite direction, slamming themselves into the first-floor study and locking the door behind them.

The Axe Man let out an earth-shaking roar, swinging his massive axe, and charged after Eli's group.

A deafening crash.

The axe slammed into the marble floor where they'd been standing a split second before, splitting the stone with a deep crack, sending shards flying. If they'd been half a second slower, they'd have been cleaved clean in two.

"This way! The basement!" Leah yelled, pointing at a heavy steel door at the end of the hall.

Eli hauled Junior toward the door, Irene covering their backs, glancing over her shoulder at the approaching Axe Man, her face white. The giant was fast, far faster than someone his size had any right to be, closing the gap between them with every massive step, his heavy footsteps a death march right behind them.

They reached the door, Eli wrenched it open, shoving Junior and Irene inside. He and Leah piled in after him, slamming the steel door shut and sliding the heavy bolt home.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

The axe slammed into the door, the impact deafening, the entire steel plate rattling, rust raining down from the frame. The bolt bent and warped with every hit, ready to snap at any second.

The group pressed their backs to the wall opposite the door, gasping for air, their hearts hammering. Junior collapsed to the floor, clutching his chest, on the verge of passing out.

"That was too close... we almost died," Leah gasped, the tree branch in her hand bent almost in two from how hard she was gripping it.

Eli took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down, and flicked on his phone's flashlight. The weak beam cut through the darkness of the basement, and when the group saw what was around them, they all gasped.

The basement was massive, deep and pitch black, the air thick with the stench of formaldehyde and rotting flesh, burning their eyes. Shelves lined every wall, filled with glass jars of every size, each one full of yellow formaldehyde, each one holding a human organ: hearts, livers, kidneys, even entire fetuses.

The organs were gray and floating in the liquid, twisted and wrong in the flashlight beam. The floor was littered with human bones, rusted scalpels and saws, and stained with dark, dried blood that covered every inch of the concrete.

"Oh my god... what the hell did Abraham Black do down here?" Irene clapped a hand over her mouth, fighting back the urge to vomit. She'd worked years as an ER doctor, and she'd never seen anything this horrific.

"He was a madman," Eli's voice was low, his flashlight beam landing on a wooden crate in the corner. He stepped toward it, lifting the lid. It was filled with yellowed photos and documents, the top one a portrait of Abraham Black himself.

The man in the photo was handsome, in a crisp black suit, his eyes deep and thoughtful-nothing like the monstrous, scarred brute with the axe. On the back of the photo, in neat fountain pen ink: April 30th, 1927. 10th wedding anniversary with Isabella.

"I know this story!" Junior blurted out, his voice trembling but firm. "I read about the Blackwood Ridge Murder House in local urban legends when I was a kid! In 1927, there was a massacre here. Abraham Black butchered his wife Isabella, his son, and his daughter with an axe, then hanged himself in the basement."

"Ever since then, the house has been cursed. No one who's ever broken in has come out alive. The legend says Abraham's ghost is trapped here, turned into a monster that only knows how to kill. He hacks apart anyone who steps foot in the house with that axe."

Eli's stomach dropped. No wonder the Axe Man had hunted them without hesitation. From the second they stepped through the door, his only goal was to kill every single one of them.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

The axe blows kept coming, harder now. The steel door was dented and cracked, the bolt so warped it was barely holding. The entire basement shook with every hit, dust raining down from the ceiling.

"The door's not gonna hold!" Leah stared at the rattling door, her face grave. "We need another way out, now!"

Eli swept the flashlight beam across the basement, and his eyes locked on a narrow ventilation duct at the far end. The metal grate over the opening was rusted and fallen off, just big enough for one person to crawl through.

"There! The vent!" Eli yelled, pointing at it. "We crawl through, it should lead somewhere else in the house!"

That's when a sharp, sickening crack split the air.

The bolt on the door had been split clean in two by the axe.

The heavy steel door was wrenched open, and the Axe Man's massive frame filled the doorway, his empty eye sockets glowing with blood-red rage, his axe still dripping black blood. He let out another deafening roar, and charged toward them, axe raised high.

"MOVE!" Eli screamed, shoving Junior forward. "You first, go! Now!"

Junior scrambled toward the vent, not hesitating for a second, and dove inside. Irene was right after him. Leah stood at the opening, yelling at Eli. "Eli! Hurry up!"

Eli snatched a thick metal pipe from the floor, hurling it as hard as he could at the charging Axe Man. It slammed into his chest, but he barely even stumbled, only growing angrier, roaring louder as he closed in on Eli.

Eli spun and sprinted for the vent, diving inside. The second he was through, the axe slammed into the concrete where he'd been standing, shearing off half the vent opening, sending concrete shards raining down on his back.

The ventilation duct was narrow and pitch black, filled with dust and cobwebs, only big enough to crawl forward on your stomach. Eli followed right behind Leah, inching forward. Outside the duct, they could hear the Axe Man's enraged roars, the sound of him hacking at the concrete wall, the entire duct shaking with every blow.

"Where are we even going?" Junior whispered from up ahead, his voice thick with tears.

"I don't know," Eli said. "We just keep going until we lose him."

They crawled through the narrow duct for what felt like an eternity, nearly fifteen minutes, before they saw light at the end. The duct opened into another vent grate, looking out into a bedroom on the second floor.

Leah pushed the rusted grate open first, climbing out, then pulled Irene, Junior, and Eli out after her.

They were in a bedroom on the second floor. It was soft and sweet, with pink walls, a pink princess bed, stuffed animals scattered across the floor. It was Emily Black's room. And it was spotless, perfectly preserved, nothing like the rotting, decayed rooms in the rest of the house. As if time had stopped here.

The group collapsed to the floor, gasping for air, dizzy with the relief of having escaped death by a hair.

That's when a bloodcurdling scream came from the room next door.

It was Rex.

The scream cut off mid-shriek, followed by the wet, sickening thud of an axe sinking into flesh, and the crunch of splintering bone.

The group stared at one another, the blood draining from their faces.

"Kane and Rex..." Irene's voice shook.

"He got out of the basement. He found them," Eli's voice was low. He knew that once the Axe Man was done with Kane and Rex, they were next.

That's when they heard heavy footsteps in the hallway outside.

Thud... thud... thud...

The footsteps got closer, and closer, until they stopped right outside the bedroom door.

The air in the room turned to ice.

The group held their breath, staring at the door, too scared to even breathe.

A few seconds later, the axe slammed into the door.

CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!

Wood splinters exploded across the room, the thick wooden door splitting open with gaping holes with every hit. Through the splintered gaps, they could see his bloodshot, murderous eyes staring right back at them.

The door wouldn't hold much longer.