Point Of No Return

Matt was at a party with his friends when it happened. The party was important, anyone who was anyone went and this wasn't his first time going to one of these types of things. Though, Matt always dragged his friends along, invitation or not.

The five of them claimed a corner of their own in the loud house in order to sit down and begin playing cards. Matt’s back was to the wall and he was facing out towards the rest of the room, watching as drunk, hormonal teens made terrible life decisions.

“Hey Matt, you ready to get your ass kicked?” Tess declared with a grin, quickly and efficiently dealing out cards to all the members of the group. Matt took the teasing as a playful challenge and picked up his hand with a grin.

“In your dreams, sweetheart.” He called out over the music blaring through the house.

A couple rounds in, the five of them were feeling looser and began to take pictures for social media. Matt wanted a picture of all his friends in order to keep as his background or something and took his cell out of his jacket pocket. He fumbled with the device with uncooperative hands for an embarrassing moment, chuckling at himself under his breath as he pulled himself together and opened the camera.

He lifted it towards his laughing friends, Jeremy had his arm slung over his boyfriend Todd’s shoulder, Julia and Madison were in the middle of uproarious laughter as they clutched at one another and Tess had a small smile on her lips as she sipped at the mystery concoction in her solo cup.

He hit the little circle but instead of taking the picture, the screen glitched. The color went fuzzy and distorted, as if he’d spilled water on it, which he hadn’t. He shook the smartphone with a frown, tapping at the screen to see if he could get some kind of reaction.

Thankfully, the cell flickered back to life, the hardwood floor showing through his camera feed. With a sigh of relief, Matt lifted his phone back up and towards his friends, intent on getting at least one picture. His breath stalled in his chest as he stared through the screen at the rowdy group, a fifth member crouching behind his friends.

The intruder was some sort of monstrous creature from only a demented person’s nightmares. It had the skull of a goat, its horns long and slightly curled away from its...head. The rest of its oddly spindly body was pitch black and had unnatural proportions, its long arms laying on the ground near its hoof-like feet as if the limbs were excess rope. Its hands and feet were tipped with dark razor sharp claws and it seemed to be looking at something just off to the right.

Just seeing the creature sent ice down Matt’s spine and his next breath shuddered out of him.

It took him a minute, but Matt eventually gathered the courage to glance away from his phone and at his friends, and there was nothing there. They were all still laughing and having a good time, it was as if they hadn’t even noticed the creature lurking behind them.

Matt looked back at the screen and whatever it was, was gone, making him wonder if he’d just imagined the whole thing in a drunken stupor.

“Hey, Matt? You okay?” Tess’ voice cut through his thoughts and he turned his attention to his best friend.

“Yeah, I’m good.” Matt stated looking at her. Tess didn’t seem convinced but let it go regardless. He could never manage to lie to her, even when they were little. She’d always been understanding and, even if she knew something was wrong, she never pushed and just waited for Matt to bring it up when he was ready. This time was no different.

Looking through the camera one last time, he decided to check if his phone had taken the picture before and opened his gallery, and clicked on the first picture in the camera roll.

The photo looked innocent enough and Matt couldn’t help but smile at the gleeful picture his group of friends made. He swiped right and frowned when he realized that it was the same picture, his brows furrowing as he realized that the glitch probably fucked up his camera and took several repeat pictures.

By the third photo Matt noticed a dark shape began to take form behind his friends, the familiar goat skull slowly forming in the background. He had to stop on the sixteenth slide, his breaths coming out fast as panic and dread filled his gut like rotten sap.

If he wasn’t staring at his phone, Matt was sure that he would’ve missed the movement. The monstrous figure in the picture turned its head, its empty eye sockets boring into him directly through the screen. He let out a fearful noise and tossed his phone away from him, gaining the concerned gazes of all his friends in the process.

“I just...need to get some air.” Matt stuttered out as he stood on shaky legs, fleeing the room and leaving his phone behind on the floor. He pushed outside, letting the cool night air calm his buzzing nerves and rebelling stomach.

Matt moved further away from the house, the heavy bass muted as he took to wandering. He hoped that none of his friends followed him out since he really wasn’t ready to talk about whatever the fuck that was. Matt just stood under the starry sky, exhaling deeply and watching the wisps of his heated breath fan out in front of him.

There was a rustle in the bushes to his left and Matt froze, images of that horrible creature flashing through his mind as he backed away from the moving brush. He was just debating on his chances of getting away if he ran, when a squirrel darted out of the bushes causing him to flinch back. Matt chuckled at himself for being so jumpy, relaxing as he watched the little rodent disappear up a tree.

That’s when he felt breath on the back of his neck, puffs of white swirling past his face. Whatever it was that was breathing smelled horrible, like rotten eggs and Matt’s stomach dropped out. Everything else was forgotten as his terror mounted, the area around him dead silent and he couldn’t even hear the muffled music anymore. Matt felt its long claws on either side of his head and choked on a sob before everything suddenly went dark.

When he woke up again, he was at home laying on the floor in the middle of his bedroom. Matt didn’t remember getting home and he wondered if the entire thing with the creature was a horrible hallucination since he apparently drank enough to black out.

He heaved himself upright with a groan, his entire body ached and his temples throbbed something fierce. He hoped that all his friends got home alright as well and decided to call them to make sure. Unfortunately, his phone wasn’t on the nightstand, which was where he usually put it if it wasn’t being used.

Shit. He left it at the party.

Matt got up and stumbled to the door, pulling it open with the intention of getting something to eat. The hallway was dark and gave off an eerie feeling, but when he tried the light switch, it didn’t work. That’s when he noted that the whole house had a muted tone, the usual bright blue of his walls coming out a sickly gray.

Something was very wrong.

Matt went back into his room and into the closet in order to grab his metal baseball bat, white-knuckling the grip as he cautiously crept out of his room and across the hall to his sisters.

“Emma.” He whispered into the darkness as he shut the door behind him. Matt took an unsteady breath as he flicked the light switch for the dimly lit room a few times, not getting a response. Well, it was worth a try. “Emma. Seriously, this isn’t funny.” Matt stated a bit louder and he got a response when the bed springs for his sibling's mattress creaked, like someone had rolled over.

As he tip-toed over to the bed on the opposite side of the room, his eyes darted about the once happy and fun space, it was almost...twisted in a way. All of her cute posters and pictures were replaced by unsettling and straight up demented scribbles of things he couldn’t describe. The once welcoming space felt dangerous and all Matt wanted to do was leave, but he wouldn’t without his sister.

“Emma come on, let’s go.”

He heard a scraping sound from the cushioned bench where Emma kept her stuffed animals and Matt squinted into the darkness at the furniture, eyes widening at the sight of her toys. There was some kind of dark liquid oozing from the antique toy couch, a thin sheet covering the stuffed animals as if tucked in.

Matt approached the weird looking furniture against his better judgment and lifted the blanket, only to gag and turn away when he saw what was hidden beneath.

The stuffed animals were akin to some botched taxidermy, the rotting flesh of what looked like roadkill patched together with crude black stitches, chunks of stringy flesh coming off in clumps and making the toy sag oddly.

Matt made a choked noise when he noticed the extremely realistic beady eyes of the several stuffed animals locked onto him, and when he leaned to the left, they seemed to follow the movement. Always watching. He quickly dropped the blanket back onto the toys, the ratty sheet re-covering the demonic stuffies from hell.

He rapidly backtracked into the middle of the room, his breathing coming faster as he tried to process what was happening to him. He was sure that it wasn’t a dream, Matt didn’t think he could conjure up anything half as sick as this.

Emma’s bed springs creaked again and Matt stilled, he was beginning to think that his sister wasn’t the one he was in the room with. He turned slightly -just enough to look over his shoulder- and spotted whatever was in the bed. And the thing was definitely an it.

No human could ever be that big.

Matt finally saw reason and decided to cut his losses, obviously Emma wasn’t there -probably never had been- and now he needed to get out. He was moving away towards the door when he saw the sheet containing the stuffed animals move, as if something was breathing underneath.

No...no way.

It was enough of a distraction that he didn’t notice the toy behind him until he’d stepped down onto it, causing the cheap plastic to crack loudly under the pressure.

The room went ice cold as the huge figure under the covers seemed to disappear, the blankets fluttering down to lay flat on the lumpy mattress. Matt opted to abandon being stealthy, just turning on his heel and running. He heard a roar and jumped the majority of the staircase, the heavy thud of footsteps following him down.

The front door was only a few feet away now, the creature so close behind him that he could practically feel its disgusting breath on the back of his neck. His hand reached out desperately, wrapping around the brass knob.

If he could just get out-