The TikTok Challenge to Die For

TikTok, now you’re dead,

Spend the night in fear and dread

With the ghosts from dusk till dawn

Will you live, or will you die?

Matt Presley stood in front of Angel Point, an old decommissioned lighthouse on the Atlantic ocean on the coast of Rhode Island. The gentle salt breeze carried with it the sweet musty scent of rotting wood. The wood frame structure was once a gleaming white jewel, but now only small areas of white paint remained. The lighthouse itself was part of the primary structure and rose 40 feet above the roof line.

A noise from his phone told him he had an incoming video call.

“Hey bro, you didn’t chicken out, did you?” his friend Will asked.

“Check it out!” he replied and spun the camera around to him the lighthouse. When he came back around, Will’s mouth was slightly open.

“Dude, show me that again!”

Matt spun the phone around again, slower this time. When he came back, Will’s face had moved much closer to the phone. There was a worried frown on his face.

“There’s a woman in that window on the right!”

Matt looked up at the window. He saw nothing except the reflection of clouds.

“Will, quit trying to freak me out!” Matt chuckled and ended the call while Will was still talking.

Matt wasn’t usually one to do Tiktok challenges. At 17, he was gaining a bit more maturity and realizing just how stupid most of them really were. Actually, he wondered if a re-incarnated Charles Darwin created most Tiktok challenges to weed out the weakest links among us. But this Ghost house challenge was right up his alley. First, he didn’t believe in all that ghost nonsense. He was an atheist. Once you die, you die. That’s it. Just because some crazy lady jumped off the cliff here didn’t mean her spirit haunted this house. Too many people had a vivid imagination. He was only doing this challenge to get some great video footage for his YouTube channel, Atheism Today—maybe even get a lot more subscribers.

He hoisted his backpack over his shoulder and started walking toward the house. Birds circled overhead as he walked. He assumed they were seagulls, but as he glanced up, he noticed the unmistakable bald red head of vultures. The birds seemed to circle around him and the house. There were no dead animals that he could see and nothing he could smell. The display left him feeling a little uneasy, but he shook it off.

When he reached the door, he pulled out a large iron key. His friends didn’t know that a family friend knew the owner of the lighthouse. They wanted to unload this property at fair market value, but that’s hard to do when people think it’s haunted. The owner wanted him to show that it’s not.

He put the old iron key into the lock. It took some force to get the lock turned and even more force to push the door open. He could see the strands of spider webs being stretched and broken in the gap as he opened the door.

Great! he thought. I freaking hate spiders!

He continued to push the door open. The heavy wooden door groaned on its hinges as he pushed. The salt air had coated them in a solid layer of rust. Finally, it was open far enough for him to slip the backpack off and slip in. The darkness inside left him blind, so he pulled a flashlight from his pocket and shined it around the main room. The furniture was covered in white sheets, turned gray by years of dust. He walked over to the largest sofa and removed the sheet as carefully as he could, but the cloud of dust sent him into a fit of coughing.

“I’m glad I took my allergy meds,” he commented to himself as he unpacked his backpack. He packed for any other camping trip with a few LED lanterns, backup battery packs, granola bars, beef jerky, and a sleeping bag. The only extra equipment he brought was a selfie light and tripod for his vlog of the experience. He set up one of the LED lanterns on a table next to the sofa. It lit the room enough for him to see more detail. Nauticle themed paintings either clung to the walls by spider webs or littered the floor. Wallpaper hung off the wall in sheets here and there. Matt detected the definite smell of death in the air. Maybe an animal crawled into the walls and died. That would explain the vultures circling.

“Well, only dusk till dawn,” he repeated to himself while setting up his selfie light. He started the live stream to all the major platforms.

“Hi, ladies and gents. I’m here at the supposedly haunted Angel Point lighthouse. It is about 30 minutes till sundown. This is the Ghost house Tiktok challenge. The only reason I’m doing this is to show the world that ghosts do not exist. So... I’m going to have my supper of beef jerky and a granola bar. See you in two hours. Over and out!”

Matt hit stop and turned the selfie light off. He had stifled a yawn during the live stream so knew he would have to snooze a little to make the next one. After eating, he spread out the sleeping bag on the sofa. The arm made a fair pillow. After setting a two-hour timer on his phone and resting the phone on his chest, he lay down and fell asleep quickly.

He dreamed he was at home in bed with his girlfriend. She wrapped her arm around him and he instinctively grabbed her hand and kissed it. He expected soft silky skin and the smell of apple blossoms, her favorite moisturizer. But the putrid smell of death made him pop his eyes open. He was back in Angel Point and right in front of his eyes was an arm and hand. Blackened puss oozed out of dark green veins.

Matt jumped to his feet, chest heaving, and an icy chill running down his spine like a waterfall. He pulled out the flashlight and shined it over to the couch. Nothing was there.

“Get it together, Matt!” he shouted to himself, and rubbed his eyes. The two-hour alarm on his phone went off, making him flinch. He turned on the selfie light, composed himself, and started the live stream.

“Hi ladies and gents, coming to you again from Angel Point, the supposedly haunted lighthouse. Still no sign of any ghosts but plenty of rabid dust bunnies and probably a dead animal or two in the walls—”

Thump!

From behind him, something large clattered on the wood floor. He jerked his head around just in time to see a small Victorian writing desk fall forward on its face.

“Hang on guys, let me check this out…” he said, pushing a raised index finger toward the phone camera. He walked over to the overturned desk with his flashlight. His logical mind was trying to override the rising fear pounding through his chest and sending more ice water pouring down his spine.

“Who’s jacking with me?” Matt yelled at the ceiling. He remembered the live stream and ran back to the phone.

“Listen! I want to know who is behind this!” he demanded, jabbing his shaking finger at the live stream audience. “Will, if you’re behind this, I swear to God I will kick you’re a-”

Matt’s phone started ringing.

“I’ll be back in another two hours. I think I know who’s behind this.” he spat and cut the live stream. Will was calling.

“I knew it was you!” he raged into the phone, his face burning. “Are you trying to make a fool out of me?”

“Dude, listen, listen, listen!” Will persisted.

“What?!” Matt asked, seething.

“I did not do this!” he insisted. “You need to get out of there. You’re in danger. Quick, playback the last live stream and you’ll see.”

Matt put the phone on speaker and played it back. A second before the desk fell, a mist came through the wall and congealed into a feminine form. White hair matted with dried blood and seaweed framed a grotesquely bloated greenish blue face. Deep gashes crisscrossed the face and oozed black filth. Maggots fell from her open, wordless mouth. She wore a soiled, soaked nightgown that failed to hide a twisted and broken body. Bones stuck out from her legs and hips at bizarre angles. A bony hand reached out to the desk, and it fell over. Then the form turned back into a vapor and vanished.

“I have to be imagining this,” he whispered, running his fingers through his hair.

“No, Matt! Everyone saw this! Look at your comments!”

He squinted over at the comments on the right said. Hundreds of WTF’s and OMGs filled them. Some even described the woman asking if he was doing this.

“Okay, I’m out. I’ll see you in-” He said, but the phone and all the lights blinked out. Pitch black fell around him like a shroud. Even the flashlight wouldn’t turn on. The surrounding temperature dropped by 20 degrees. His body began shaking both from cold and from fright. He wanted to find the door and just leave his stuff and run, but the dark and fear completely disoriented him. He tried to feel for the couch, but tripped over the selfie light tripod and fell. Something broke his fall. His eyes were adjusting to the dark and as he looked around, he was nose to nose with the face from the live stream. An otherworldly shriek cut through his soul and almost stopped his heart. He scrambled to his feet and charged straight to the door. His hands barely worked as he pawed at it to pull it open. After ripping back several fingernails, he wrenched it open enough to slip through and run into the dark night. Clouds and fog obscured everything but a few feet in front of him. He had no clue which direction he was going, but with every step, a bony claw tore at his back, ripping through his shirt and leaving deep scratches. He glanced back to see the ghostly women right behind him. His feet no longer found ground. His last sight was crashing waves and rocks of the cliff at Angel Point coming up to meet him.

Will paced his bedroom floor, wondering what to do. He tried to call Matt back, but it went straight to voicemail. His mom walked by on her way to the bathroom and saw him.

“Will, what are you doing up?” she asked, drawing her robe tighter and tying it.

“Mom, I think Matt’s in danger. Check out this video! I can’t get him on the phone now!”

He played the video. His mom gasped and put her hand over her mouth. The color drained from her face.

“We’ve got to get over there!” he yelled.

“We’re not going anywhere near that place. Call the police. Tell them Matt’s in danger. And don’t you dare tell them anything about ghosts. They’ll think you’re just a crazy kid calling in a prank. You hear me?”

Will nodded and dialed 911. He gave them all the information and hung up. Sitting on his bed, he rocked back and forth and just kept trying to call. His mother sat down on the bed next to him and put her arm around him. No news would come until late next morning from a news break:

“In a TikTok challenge gone wrong, TikTok and YouTube star Matt Presley fell to his death from the cliff at Angel Point early this morning. Apparently, the Ghost house challenge encourages users to spend a night in an allegedly haunted house. Despite video footage purporting to show evidence of ghost activity on Matt Presley’s live stream right before the incident, authorities strongly believe his death is simply a terrible accident and strongly caution people from entering old and unsafe houses. Stay tuned for more news at 11.”