Real Estate Agent to the Dead (Goosebumps)

[dodgesuperbee]

Cross-posted to FF.N. Writing Goosebumps fanfiction at age 30 is a whole new level of nerdiness, but I enjoyed the first book in the series as much as my 5-year-old horror fan. Ever since seeing Night of the Living Dead as a kid, I've always been a sucker for a good living dead story. I haven't abandoned the Cars fandom at all, this is just an attempt to write something non-vehicular for the first time in two years.

Setting: Immediately after the events of Welcome to Dead House, the first Goosebumps book
Author’s Notes: Contains spoilers for WtDH, of course. This is written at a higher reading level than WtDH and contains heavier themes, though nothing terribly adult in nature.
Content: Violence/gore, heavy moral themes, spirituality
Disclaimers: All characters copyright R.L. Stine/Scholastic and no profit is being made from this fanfiction. If anyone wants to take any element of this story and run with it creatively (art, writing, etc.) you have my permission.

Dark Falls, Population: One

The green leaves pressed their coolness against my sweat-streaked face, and I welcomed their embrace as I dug myself deeper under their cover. My fingernails were encrusted with dirt and I was certain the knees of my suit were in tatters, but my only concern lay with reaching the shelter of the innermost branches. My boot struck a thick tree limb, forcing me to slide sideways, crab-like, toward the core of the tree. My leafy hiding place may have blocked the sun, but nothing could filter out the anguished cries of the residents of Dark Falls as they collapsed en masse just feet away from where I hid.

Moments before mayhem had struck, we had been about to partake in our grim but necessary annual ritual. Fresh blood had to be sacrificed to keep the town alive, and myself and old Spangler, the mayor, had been at the forefront of the ampitheater, watching to make sure nobody got ahead of himself and attacked the victims before everyone had arrived. A hapless middle-aged couple sat bound before us, and just as Spangler had given his approval to their deaths, their children had appeared on the hillside. Amanda and Josh had lost no time in flinging themselves at the tree that leaned precariously over our dugout and gave us the shade our very existence depended upon. Spangler and I had stood frozen in shock, until I recognized my own voice snarling sarcastically, “Well, just look who’s come to dinner.” I don’t think Spangler appreciated my dry humor, but moments later he would find himself too busy dying to care.

The sickening crack of the tree’s anchoring roots was followed by the surprised gasps and angered wails of all those around me as they sensed, too late, what was coming. The oak came down fast, and while all the townsfolk sprang to their feet in panicked desperation, heaving their bodies from the ampitheater seats, I was the only one who lunged toward the tree instead of attempting to flee. I saw my lone opportunity to save myself and threw my body onto the grass, staining and ripping my clothes. The thick trunk of the oak barely missed me and I felt my wide-brimmed western hat torn from my head and lost in the crush of branches.

Oh, the screams. They diminished into groans, blended with the sounds of bones dropping to the earth. I was fear-stricken that an errant ray of sun had found its way to my flesh and I, too, was dissolving like the doomed people of my town, but the hissing noise I had heard was only a sympathetic utterance of my own.

“Thank you, Amanda! Thank you!” Those words struck me the deepest. Could that girl Karen possibly have been grateful that her friend had just killed her?

I had much time to contemplate that possibility as I sweltered under the tree. The leaves around me eventually sagged and drooped in the intense heat of an early summer day and my concern for my own fate grew until finally the air around me began to cool, signaling evening’s approach. Gingerly, I extricated myself from under the tree, parting each cluster of leaves with a shaky hand. Once free, I rose stiffly to my feet, my hands running over torn fabric as I brushed twigs from my pant legs. It was twilight, and the horizon was streaked with warm tones of red and orange.

Dust. All around me, only dust, in piles, streaks and heaps. It even hung in the air and I realized with disgust that I was drawing in the essence of my friends with each breath.

I was the only one remaining, though I’d hardly consider myself a survivor. With a trembling hand, I reached between two branches for my crushed hat and pulled it down until it met the jagged tear in my forehead, an injury suffered not long before the massacre.

My eyes narrowed, surveying the ampitheater. A faint breeze scattered dust over my boots, and I distractedly kicked it off. Then a laugh escaped my throat, a bitter chuckle as dry as the dust that surrounded me.

She had been grateful. Grateful that was finally free of the horrifying cycle of luring in fresh blood, feeding and plotting again. I laughed because I wasn’t sure whether I should have been grateful for being spared or whether I should mourn the fact that I was now damned to live on as the town’s lone resident.

[dodgesuperbee]

I somehow made it back to the house I’d claimed as my own in Dark Falls, my mind numb. Stowing my tiny Civic in the garage, I stumbled inside holding my torn forehead, consoling myself with the knowledge that in time it would heal. Sometimes I would feel nostalgic and look back through my collection of old photographs, remembering what kind of life I had before I came to town, and I thought doing so now might bring me comfort and help me think.

The pictures looked somewhat antiquated now with their rounded corners and dates stamped on the backs with yellow ink, but they shared a common element of sunshine. It may have just been the way the colors had faded over the years, but every photo seemed awash in light. As I flipped through the images, I saw myself standing outside my high school in a graduate’s cap with a big grin and a thumbs-up sign, my blond hair almost white in the sun’s rays. In another, I was relaxing on the sun-drenched patio holding a magazine and a glass of what looked to be iced tea. I hadn’t even been aware that one of my parents had taken the photo. There I was again, this time mowing the lawn in cut-offs, well on my way to a painful sunburn. I closed my eyes wistfully, almost smelling the aloe vera I had used for days afterward.

My father had captured in those little 4-by-4-inch photographs all the stereotypical big events in my life: attending the prom, getting the keys to a used car he’d chosen, and finally the fateful day I’d loaded all my worldly possessions into that hatchback and set off for my first professional job in a faraway town I’d never heard of called Dark Falls. If only I had known.

Pulling my face into a sneer, I turned the last picture over. “Sep 80” had been neatly stamped on the back by the mail-order developing company. It was the last image of myself I had, and by the time it had arrived in the mail from my dad as a memento of the day I’d moved from home, I’d already been dead for weeks. I had never bothered to take any pictures after the townspeople had made me one of them, nor could I enjoy the sunlight any more since even the gentlest rays would be capable of destroying me.

The house I called home was a sturdy split-level built not long before the accidental release of toxic gas that had turned Dark Falls into a town of the living dead. When Spangler had told me to choose any house, I’d picked the one that reminded me most of my old home. The shuttered plastics plant responsible for the massive dose of death was visible from the second-floor window, though I spent most of my time in the basement as did my other light-fearing friends.

I rested on the cool cement floor, staring up at the youthful artifacts of a lifetime ago. A milkcrate of vinyl records shared space atop the woodgrain television set with one of the earliest home video games ever made, and farther up on the walls were pinned the posters I’d once thought were so clever but now found overly cute. A kitten barely clinging to a rope urged me to “Hang in there, baby!” while a line of marching comic-book figures cheerily proclaimed “Keep on truckin’!”

As if. At any rate, it didn’t seem like the kind of room a killer would call home, but that’s what it was, and that’s what I was, a soulless murderer and the only remaining Dark Falls resident. I almost felt jealous of the others, though I had no idea where their souls might be right now. Part of me even felt like they had gotten what they’d deserved, for they had guiltlessly led me to my own death years before.

Sullenly I turned on the television, pulling the paisley curtains over the glass-block windows first. I’m not sure why I bothered, for it was unlikely anybody would see the bluish glow from outdoors. Nobody was around. Amanda and Josh had surely escaped with their parents by now, though I doubted anyone would believe their story of being waylaid by an army of the living dead. I had kept up with the news reports enough to know that all major routes to our town had been blocked off long ago and Dark Falls was considered a tragic Superfund site that nobody could afford or bring themselves to demolish.

The hue on the old television was off, making the reporter’s face look as ghastly as my own. She was droning on about some escaped convict from the county jail, and in distaste I crossed the room to turn the dial. Every place had its problems, and I couldn’t be bothered to hear about some other murderer—some fellow murderer, I reminded myself—who was at large and probably wondering what to do with himself, as I was now.

Though I no longer had any need for sleep, I tried to lull myself into a sense of calm with a mindless late-night TV show.

It didn't work.

[Crash_N_Burn]

o.0 reminds me of the actually book.well done

[dodgesuperbee]

Thank you! When the book ended with only one of the living dead surviving, I started thinking about what his existence in an otherwise abandoned town would be like and those thoughts spawned this fanfic. I'm thrilled you read it and thought of the original book.