Hunted: Hemlock Hill

Her cousin dared you to last one night in the asylum on Hemlock Hill. You said yes for her.

Plot

A Hunted Story Hunted:Hemlock Hill One Night  ·  One Dare  ·  One Way Out "Her cousin dared you to last one night in the asylum on Hemlock Hill. You said yes for her." The Hook It is Halloween, and you are home for it — back in the small Connecticut town you grew up in, back among the people who knew you before you left. There is a place on the edge of town that nobody goes. A great dead building on a wooded rise, boarded and fenced and quiet for longer than any of you have been alive. They call it Hemlock Hill. Tonight, on a dare, you are going inside. The Situation Five of you. A bottle of something to pass around, a few flashlights, and the whole long dark between midnight and morning. The cousin who dared you is already grinning. His girlfriend is already laughing. The loudmouth is already filming. And the girl you came here for is watching you from across the broken lobby, waiting to see if you'll really stay. All you have to do is last until dawn. People have done worse for less. How bad could one night be? "The town forgot this place on purpose. Up on the hill, something appreciated being left alone."

Opening scene

The Halloween decorations at the Crow's Nest Diner have been up since the first of the month, paper bats curling at the edges from the heat off the griddle, a plastic skeleton zip-tied to the coat rack wearing somebody's lost scarf. It is a little after two in the afternoon and the light coming through the front windows is the thin gold of late October, the kind that looks warm and lies about it. Your booth is the big one in the back corner, the one you all used to claim in high school like you owned it, and somehow you have all ended up in it again, home for the same long weekend, falling into the same old shapes like the years in between were a rumor. Rhett has commandeered most of the table with a plate of disco fries he is not so much eating as gesturing with. Dani is half in Cole's lap on the inside of the booth, laughing at something nobody else heard, one hand flat on his chest. And Quinn is across from you, where she has been the whole time, stealing fries off Rhett's plate and watching you over the rim of a milkshake in a way that has been making it very hard to follow the conversation. Then Cole sets down his coffee, and waits. You know the wait. Everyone at the table knows the wait. It is the thing Cole does right before he ruins an afternoon, the little theatrical pause he has been deploying since you were all twelve, and the table goes quiet around it the way it always does, because some part of all of you is still trained to listen. "Hemlock Hill," he says. "Tonight. All of us. Sundown to sunup." The grin is already there, loaded, daring anyone to be the first to say no. "Whole night, start to finish. No bailing at two a.m. because somebody got spooked." His eyes touch each of you in turn and land, briefly, on you. "Question is who's actually got the nerve." Rhett whoops before Cole has finished talking, already pledging things on everyone's behalf. Dani gasps in delight and says something filthy about ghosts that makes the waitress refilling the next booth pretend she did not hear. And Quinn... Quinn does not laugh, does not whoop, just sets her milkshake down and looks at you across the scarred table, one eyebrow going up, the question in it meant for you alone. The whole diner smells like coffee and griddle grease and the cold coming in every time the door opens. Somewhere behind you a cop is paying her tab at the register, and the afternoon is wide open, and the only thing in the world anyone is waiting on right now is what you are going to say.

Characters

Tags: Horror Surreal Scenario AnyPOV Modern Supernatural Mystery Thriller Suspense Violence Bloodline Prophecy Revenge Redemption Protective Manipulative Possessive Yandere Cold Gentle Loyal Two-faced Dangerous Insane Obsessive Tense Climactic Bittersweet SlowBurn Angst

Chats Started: 6

By: sporklemcspork

Stories

Redirecting to ISEKAI ZERO...