My friend and I do building renovations and we found a broken head.

It is getting crazy at this point, I feel like we just cannot find a regular job. This one was the worst by far. Not the work itself, but what happened. We barely made it out of there and I doubt anyone will believe our story. But I may as well come clean and let you know what happened to us at the Baxter building. We may have had a hand in its destruction, but what burned there was something far worse than a simple building, something evil was hopefully destroyed there as well.

I was behind the wheel of our old work van as Jake and I rolled toward the Baxter building downtown. The van’s worn seats and the lingering smell of fuel and dusty upholstery set the stage for our trip back to the renovation project. We had worked a few odd jobs together for a while since our crime scene cleanup days and that last job that lead to our departure from that line of work.

We were cruising down the highway and Jake turned down the blaring Metalica just long enough to comment on our past cleanup jobs and how he preferred our current jobs,

“Yeah man, this beats the hell out of the old gig. It is way better than clearing out blood and brain matter from all those cleanup jobs. Especially the last one, you know, the one where we almost died? I would take the risk of asbestos exposure over being cut up by a psychopath any day. Plus the pay is better." He grinned like a maniac and laughed. I couldn’t disagree. The contractor we were working with now had been very reliable and even though we stayed busy and the days were hard, at least cleaning up old buildings and doing renovation beat all the terrible things we saw in our old line of work.

He always teased me about my overly serious recounting of the incident, and I can’t help but chuckle, my reflections tinted by the gravity of our shared experiences. We did almost die. Amid the banter, our conversation weaves between memories of bizarre mishaps and the practical realities of our new renovation gig, revealing both the humor and heaviness that come with our line of work.

We put the past aside as we pulled up to the job site and parked the van. Jake got out and started grabbing some of the equipment we were supposed to bring with us. I went to help but my eyes were immediately drawn to the Baxter building’s crumbling façade, a grim reminder of a time long past. I thought it was a hotel or something before it closed years ago. I was not sure of the history. Now it was destined to become overpriced condos or something. I supposed I would find out if I was kept on long enough to see the project complete. The building stood with broken windows, peeling paint, and a structure that seems to almost breathe the weight of its history. I felt a clap on my back as Jake snapped me out of my reverie,

“Snap out of it dude we gotta go. Busy day so no screwing around. Also if I have to haul this stuff inside then you have to help with the floors.” I shrugged and accepted the terms of his deal and we got a move on.

As we walked into the lot, we were greeted by familiar faces: Mark, who was busy inspecting the entrance while chatting with another colleague, Teresa, whose quick smile contrasted with the ominous atmosphere. And Lyle, our foreman who, though friendly, always looked on the verge of being pissed off for whatever reason. Jake would of course say, “Lyle just has a bit of the old RBF, ya know Resting Bitch Face” though of course he would never say that to the bosses face.

With a few handshakes, greetings and some light-hearted jibes exchanged, we dove into the day's tasks dividing up roles, discussing what pieces of the rundown structure to restore first, and plotting our next moves around scattered tools and reclaimed wood. Lyle directed everyone to the most pressing tasks at hand and we got to work. The environment was great and we had all worked together before on other jobs. But the sense of camaraderie was tinged with an undercurrent of apprehension. The place was a little spooky and we were glad we were working early in the day.

By mid-morning, the work is in full swing, and I could see tangible progress taking shape as we methodically peeled away layers of decay. I was working alongside Jake, measuring planks for new flooring and removing old, hazardous materials with careful precision. Despite our steady pace, obstacles quickly appeared, a stubborn, rotting section of the floor that refused to come up easily and hidden wiring that forced us to improvise. As I took a moment to catch my breath, my thoughts drifted to the strange mix of satisfaction and worry: satisfaction from knowing our hard work was reviving a forgotten building, yet worry about the eerie vibe that seemed woven into its very structure. We had a lot left to do but it was coming together. I was anxious to get some new paint and lighting in the building to push back some of the oppressive gloom and creepy atmosphere.

I realized I must still be a bit stressed out after what happened last year. Almost being murdered will make you a bit paranoid and I wish I had the carefree attitude about it that Jake managed to maintain. I got back to the task at hand.

After a few hours, Lyle instructed Jake, Mark and myself to head to the basement and start down there. All three of us could not suppress groans of annoyance at being assigned the task. The area was one of the rougher spots in the building and no one wanted to go down there, even in the daytime, it was dark and stank like a moldy tomb. Jake started to mutter something, but Lyle cut him off, reminding him,

“If that is asking too much you are welcome to go home, just don’t expect a paycheck in the mail if you cut and run now. I know it sucks, but just get over it.”

We grabbed our lights and went down to the basement.

If there were windows in there, the grime choked them. Greasy shadows clung to the corners of the basement like a second skin, and our steps echoed loudly through the darkness. We'd stripped the Baxter building to its bones and exposed a frame barely held together by time and mold.

I played the third wheel. While they pried at stubborn pieces, I carted the scraps into piles of kindling that stretched from one damp wall to the other. It felt like miles down there, the whole place wider and emptier than it had any right to be, and yet somehow, suffocatingly close. We talked loud and often to fill the space.

"Careful, Mark," I warned. "You fall through, and Jake and I aren't catching you."

"Just testing you guys," Mark shot back, his grin wide in the dimness. "Make sure you're paying attention!"

Jake grunted, his words few and far between as usual. "Miles is just worried he'll have to do some real work."

My laugh came quick. "You know it."

Our voices tangled in the air, blending with the scrape of crowbars and the crackle of wood. Every piece we took away revealed more decay, more dark patches spreading like disease. The whole building sat heavy with water and time. We both looked up when Mark shouted.

"Whoa!"

His boots thudded once, twice, then silence. He stood on a soft patch, doing a wild jig to stay upright, and then there was a splintering crash. His arms went wide, and he disappeared, swallowed by the floor.

It happened in a blink, but I felt it stretch and warp, a surreal moment as though caught underwater. Jake's arm was extended, futile and late, while I just stood and stared. Then the noise of Mark's laughter came from beneath us, rising through the haze of floating debris.

"Did you guys see that?" he hollered. "That was insane!"

We found our breath. "Hell, Mark," I yelled, trying to sound mad instead of scared. "Quit playing around!"

Jake was already on his knees, examining the edges of the hole. "Can you move?" His voice was steady, more curious than concerned.

"Are you hurt?" I added, peering over Jake's shoulder into the jagged opening. A ten-foot drop at least. It was a miracle the guy wasn't dead.

Mark's laugh bounced back again, the loudest sound in the room. "Just my pride," he said. "Guess it was bound to happen with the way this place is holding up."

Jake straightened, brushing dust from his knees. "We need to be more careful," he said, but there was relief etched in his smile.

The sight from above made the fall seem more harrowing. The edge of the break was a mess of splinters and dry rot. One side was mostly intact, the brittle wood giving way to an almost comical silhouette of where Mark's outline had been. We'd expected rot, but not this. The narrow escape was as unsettling as it was impressive.

I tossed my crowbar down to Mark. "Looks like you're the advance team. See if there's any gold down there!"

He caught it with ease, even in the bad light. "Roger that," he said, already setting to work.

I could barely see his shape moving in the shadows, but his voice kept coming, loud and bright and full of life. "You should get down here," he shouted. "There's some weird stuff."

The surprise in his tone carried up to us, laced with a kind of giddy triumph. I shared a look with Jake. He seemed torn between irritation and admiration for Mark's recklessness, but when we heard the hammering below, he gave a nod.

We left the skeleton floor behind, careful not to tread too close to any other soft spots. With a mix of reluctance and curiosity, we made our way to join Mark in his strange discovery. There was a new energy in our steps, cautious but alive. Mark was right. It was bound to happen, just not the way we'd planned.

What we saw when we descended, was a man made cave, but that didn't make it feel any less like a tomb. Stale and damp, the air lay heavy around us as Jake and I made our way down, stepping past layers of debris that clung to our boots like dead leaves in the fall. Our lights flickered, casting odd shadows against the walls. This was a different kind of forgotten, the entire space looked ancient and Mark stood in the center of it, like the world's worst tour guide.

"Thought you'd never get here," he said, sounding like he was in a park instead of the abyss. He waved his arms, giving us the grand tour. "Check it out," he said, pointing to the walls. "Ever seen anything like this?"

His energy was contagious, if only a little. We walked over to join him, moving like spelunkers through the remains of old, broken boxes and crumbling concrete. The room was filled with the echoes of our movement and Mark's unfazed enthusiasm. "Pretty wild," I said, the sarcasm failing to mask the creeping unease in my chest.

Jake squatted by one of the walls, shining his light into a low niche. He didn't say anything, just reached in and pulled out a pile of scorched plastic. The smell was a harsh whisper, chemical and faint. "Looks like something burned here," he said as he started to grin,

"Extra crispy."

Each alcove was a mystery, some filled with the remains of melted, twisted objects, others with burned-out candles. It was hard to tell what had happened, but the room felt saturated with old, leftover rituals. The farther we went, the stranger the debris became, with blackened metal scraps and disfigured shapes littering the floor.

"You think someone was living down here?" I asked, but it was a weak attempt at an explanation. The place was too alien, too deliberately unsettling.

Jake shook his head. "Doubt it, unless they were eating barbeque plastic" he said with a half hearted laugh. "But somebody spent time here."

Mark was more methodical, scanning each section before moving on. "It's strange," he said, more to himself than to us.

We followed him into the far corner. By the time we were halfway through, the scope of it all was beginning to wear on me.

"What is this place?" I said, feeling small in the empty vastness.

Jake didn't slow down. "Underground lair of some mad scientist," he guessed. "Maybe we'll find his secret stash."

Mark stayed quiet, his eyes narrowed with focus as he picked through the endless clutter. Nothing in the labyrinth made sense. If anything, the further we went, the more questions piled up, heavier than the scraps we unearthed.

We reached the far end. The space was more cluttered, the objects more deliberate. It was a shrine of junk, a museum of bizarre pieces left to rot in obscurity. The alcoves were packed, some filled with spidery symbols etched into the soot-stained walls, others crowded with melted fragments. The air was thicker there, and the cold seemed more intense.

Then we saw it, half-hidden in a small niche at the very back. Even in the shadows, there was no mistaking the shape.

A lone doll.

It sat in silence, perched above us like it was waiting for something. The head was cracked in a dozen places, and its glassy eyes stared with unsettling brightness. Unlike the other objects, it was perfectly intact. Despite its size, it seemed to dominate the entire space.

Jake's breath came out in a slow, visible stream. He moved closer, cautiously, as though it might leap out and bite him. "Creepy, hey guys do you think we found Annabelle’s cousin." he said as he nervously laughed, his words not quite capturing the way it filled the room.

Mark hesitated. His grin faltered as he joined us, his first steps unsure. But he recovered, trying to laugh it off. "Guess that's the prize," he said, though his voice was missing its usual bravado.

None of us wanted to touch it. Even Mark kept his distance, the doll's uncanny presence enough to make him pause. It was worse than the decay and darkness. It was patient and aware, sitting in its own shadow like it had been there forever. We didn't need to say anything. We all felt it. The oppressive weight of it hung around us. Before I could say anything, Jake chimed in,

“Whelp, I’m out. Screw the creepy ass haunted doll in a hidden cave under an old building. Let’s go tell the others and see what Lyle wants to do with this crap.” I agreed with Jake and so did Mark. We all tried to find a good way back up. Unfortunately the boards that bent revealing our way down in a semi incline, broke almost immediately when we tried to use them to pull ourselves up. To our dismay we were stuck down there.

Jake and I started calling for help, but we did not know if our voices would carry far enough so the others could hear. I tried to lift him up on my shoulders but we still couldn’t manage it. As we were trying to get out, Mark called us back, “Hey guys look at what I found.”

We moved back over to him and he was holding something. The paper was fragile. It almost crumbled at Mark's touch, the edges turning to dust as he unfolded it with careful hands. He held it out so we could all look at it and what we saw was very disturbing. Some of the words were faded, others were smeared with dirt, but the way they strung together left me cold. A call for the "Broken Head," childish and ominous in the same unsettling breath. Jake stood at Mark's elbow, the doll a footnote in the face of the new discovery. I stayed back, half-fascinated, half-afraid, until Mark's voice carried the lopsided rhyme across the room and straight through my bones.

"Check it out," he said, and there was something almost like wonder in his voice.

I took a step closer, the hair on my arms prickling with an unnamed sense of alarm. The sub-basement was freezing, but the chill in my spine had nothing to do with the temperature. Mark read aloud, slow and steady as the words looped through the shadows.

“Broken head, oh Broken head why don’t you play with me? Think of the fun that could be done, that you and I could see.

Imagine chaos, broken eyes, in shadows we could claim. From the abyss, where nightmares dwell, your whispers, speak our game.

The Broken head, it warps and twists, its playmates they ask why?

The Broken head still plays its games, intent to watch you die.

And with your death, your final breath the game is now complete, a broken head is yours instead to end the game so neat.”

None of us spoke at first. We listened as the paper crumbled a little more with every word, and Mark's voice carved into the silence.

"A new game now, it’s time to start, the scent is in the air.

It’s time to run, it’s time to hide, the Broken head is There!"

The last word echoed off the walls, louder than any of us expected. It stayed in the air, then sank into the ground, leaving us in a void that felt impossibly empty. I swallowed hard, not sure what to say, not sure if I should say anything at all. The shadows around us seemed thicker than before, like they were crowding in to listen.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean? Some creepy ass children’s rhyme that people were into back in the day?" Jake said at last. His voice was too loud, a forced bravado barely masking the crack at its edges.

I tried to shrug, but the motion felt stiff and mechanical. "Yeah, seems a bit much for the kids. Maybe some demented adults game?" I guessed, but even I didn't believe it. I tried to match Jake’s casual attitude despite the morbid poem we had just read,

“A bit over the top, does not help reading that with that dead eyed doll staring at us in the room.”

Mark's expression was unreadable, his eyes scanning the room as though the poem were a map. "There's more to this," he said, his words more certain than his tone.

Mark shifted his weight, pretending not to be fazed. "Someone had way too much time on their hands," he said, but he stayed close, like a stray dog unsure of the territory.

We were all trying too hard, acting too casual. The weight of the place had changed, and we felt it in the way our breaths left visible ghosts in the air. I took a step back, the doll looming over us like a patient predator. It didn't seem like a footnote anymore. It was the headline, the whole story, everything.

"Guys," I said, my voice breaking through the nervous silence. "Does that doll look...different to you?"

The crack in Jakes's bravado widened. "Like it's about to eat us? Yeah, I'm getting that."

Mark didn't respond. He was watching it carefully, too carefully, and in that moment, I knew he saw it too. It was subtle, a trick of the light maybe, but the longer we stood there, the more I felt it was watching us with the same, keen awareness.

We should have left. We should have listened to every instinct that screamed for the exit, but we stood frozen, the air around us heavier by the second. The doll was still in the corner, but the way it filled the room was almost impossible to believe.

Then I saw it. Just a twitch, the smallest shift, but enough to freeze the blood in my veins. The corner of its mouth. A movement as delicate and unsettling as a whisper in the dark. Then a cracking sound and a sliver of its head broke open revealing what looked like a sickly light underneath.

Mark noticed too. His face went pale, the color draining like spilled milk. "It's awake," he said, and it wasn't a question.

Jakes's confidence shattered, fear spreading across his features like cracks on a mirror. "Are you messing with me?" he said, but he was already backing away, each step louder and more frantic.

We fled, each motion pulling us farther from the ominous thing we'd uncovered. Our breaths were ragged, fogging the air as we stumbled over debris. The room felt endless and tight, a cold grip around our throats, but nothing was more oppressive than the doll's steady gaze. It did nothing of course, did not move to follow us, just watched us through its broken face with the odd lambent light mocking us underneath its eerie visage.

We left it behind in the dark, its shadow lingering long after we'd burst into the uncertain light above. The three of us managed to get one of us up out of the terrible sub basement and pull the others out. Then we rushed out and didn't stop until we hit the stairs, Mark and Jake were right behind me. None of us dared to look back, not yet, but I knew it wasn't over. Not even close. The feeling crawled inside me like an unwelcome guest, and I knew it would be there, patient and present, when we returned to finish the job. For now we had to tell Lyle and the others about what we found.

Our foreman stomped across the cracked concrete floor, his face a collage of impatience and dust, when we clambered up to him from the basement's dim depths. I recognized the furrowed brow and crossed arms from a dozen job sites before this one; Lyle wasn't used to being kept waiting. Mark climbed ahead of me and tossed the balled-up poem at him like it was a baseball. Lyle didn't even flinch as it bounced off his chest. I half-expected him to pitch it back and tell us to go screw around on our own time, but instead, he just squinted at us, shaking his head.

"Looks like you've seen a ghost," he said, gruff and skeptical.

Jake leaned against the exposed brick wall, breathing heavy from the climb. "You're not far off, Boss." He rubbed his hands over his shaved head and let out a laugh that was mostly for show. "You ain't gonna believe this."

I caught my breath, slinging an arm around Jake's shoulder, ready to back him up. But it was Mark who spoke next, voice calm, measured and subtly more serious than normal for him. "We found something down there."

Lyle snorted. "Don't tell me you're digging for treasure. I pay you clowns to renovate, not play pirates." He picked up the paper from where it had landed at his feet and unfurled it, brow furrowing even deeper as he read. "What's this supposed to be, a joke?"

"It's real," I said, more serious now. "We hit a spot where the floor gave out. Next thing we know, we're in some kind of stone cellar."

"Could've been killed," Jake added, shaking his head with mock gravity. "Thought we were gonna be headlines: 'Workers Crushed in Tragic Basement Accident.'"

Lyle shot him a look that said he wasn't in the mood for jokes. "You're telling me the floor just collapsed? I walked that whole area myself this morning."

"It collapsed, alright," I said, raising my hands in surrender. "Not trying to accuse you of shoddy inspections, Lyle, but it dropped us like a bad habit."

Jake nodded. "We've never seen anything like it. That room down there... it's not on any of the blueprints."

Lyle rubbed his beard, considering this. His face softened, just a notch. "And this?" he asked, holding up the poem.

Mark's voice dropped, like he was about to tell a campfire story. "We weren't alone down there. Found something, someone, waiting for us."

"A doll," Jake clarified, his expression grim.

Lyle’s eyebrows shot up in a mixture of disbelief and amusement. "You're screwing with me. Tell me you're screwing with me."

"Wish we were," I said. "The thing's got a busted head and eyes that look right through you. You'd have to see it to believe it." I glanced at Jake, wondering if maybe he had bought the prop as a prank. But his face was all business, as usual.

Lyle tossed the poem back, shaking his head. "You don't have better things to do than come up with this shit?" He looked at each of us in turn, searching for a crack in our story.

"Give us some credit," Jake said. "We know our limits. We only lie when it comes to most sick days and reasons we cant come in to work."

Mark leaned in, making it clear he wasn't joking at all. "This is serious, Lyle. There's something wrong in this place. You know as well as we do, floors don't just drop out for no reason."

Lyle stood there, frowning like he was calculating some impossible equation. Finally, he grunted and gestured toward the basement. "Alright, show me. But if this is some kind of stunt, you're all out on your asses, you hear?"

I tucked the poem back in my pocket. "Wouldn't expect any less."

We grabbed the tools and gear we'd left scattered across the floor earlier. Jake rolled his eyes like he was being forced into child labor. "Didn't sign up for extra credit," he said.

"Put in the work now, and you can sleep in tomorrow," I shot back.

He shrugged. "Not a morning person. Figure I’ll just sleep in anyhow."

"You call what you do work?" Lyle said, still gruff but a bit more relaxed. The exchange of banter eased some of the tension as we got moving again.

"So how old you think this place really is?" I asked, partly to mess with Lyle but also curious.

"Got your curiosity going, huh?" Lyle shot back. "Older than me, at any rate."

"Older than dirt," Jake chimed in, making me laugh.

We reached the basement, and Lyle looked around, frowning at the chaotic sprawl of tools and debris we'd left behind. "Everything looks in order to me," he said.

"Take another look," I replied, pointing to the jagged hole gaping in the floor.

Lyle squinted at it. "Well I'll be damned," he muttered.

Jake slapped him on the back, unable to resist one last dig. "Stick with us, Lyle. Lots more surprises where that came from."

Lyle hovered like an expectant father while we set up the ladder, his brows pulled together in a skeptical knot.

"Sure you’re up for this?" I said, smirking as I wrenched the last piece of equipment into place.

He grunted, dismissive. "Just hope it's not the bottom of my boot I find when I get down there."

Jake slapped me on the back, already more upbeat than he should be after our last trip down. "Better let the Boss go first," he joked. "Get all the ghosts shaking in their boots."

"Old or new," Lyle said, "it’s still a pile of bricks and rotting wood. Don't start wetting your pants on me."

Mark steadied the ladder, but his face looked pained, like he had a headache or something. “You alright Mark?”

“What? Oh yeah I’m fine. Just got a bit of a headache, these fumes are not doing great for it either.” He tried to smile and brush it off but it seemed to be really bothering him.

We started down, the air damp and heavy with that neglected building smell. Every footstep echoed in my chest, and I felt the rawness of the concrete through my boots as if the whole place was trying to crawl into my skin. Lyle’s threats were light years away in my mind as we dropped back into the blackness.

"It's even creepier than last time," I said, taking the last step off the ladder.

"Everything's creepier when you know what's coming," Jake said, but he didn't sound too convinced himself.

The climb seemed endless, our breath shallow and quick as we made our way down. The light from the open floor above barely reached us, casting long shadows that moved with us like impatient companions. When Lyle finally touched ground, he scanned the sub-basement, his expression hard to read.

"Not seeing much here." He said

"It was right over here," I replied, pointing to the spot where we'd left the doll. I half-expected it to be sitting there, still as death and twice as ugly. Instead, nothing but an empty patch of concrete. Even the dust looked disturbed, like the thing had dragged itself off into a corner.

Lyle squinted into the gloom, his disbelief palpable. "Seems to me you're making a lot of noise over a whole lot of nothing."

The air felt thicker, somehow, like we were breathing the weight of Lyle's skepticism. I watched him try to make sense of the space, his hands on his hips, eyes scanning the walls for some clue or proof or maybe even the joke he was so sure we were playing.

"We're not wasting your time, Lyle," I said. "It was here. We all saw it."

Jakes looked uncharacteristically concerned and muttered, "It's like it got up and walked away."

Lyle crossed his arms, the hard line of his mouth carving deeper into his face.

"It don't make sense," Mark said. "We wouldn't have dragged you down here just to mess with you."

"Wouldn't you?" Lyle shot back, his voice loud enough to echo.

I felt the same unease creeping over me that I did the first time we found the damn thing. The room seemed bigger without the doll, the emptiness stretching out in every direction.

"You don't pay us to come up with stories," I said. "It was real."

"Was," Lyle said. "Looks like it still is, just in your heads." He turned his back and walked a few paces, letting the accusation hang there like old cobwebs.

"Could be something supernatural," I ventured. "Creepier things have happened in creepy places."

Lyle's jaw worked side to side, like he was trying to chew through this latest load of bull. "Do I look like an idiot to you? You brought me down here for a show and forgot the main attraction."

Jake shuffled around like he was trying to find a new angle, looking behind beams and around columns. "Was here. Damn thing was here."

He bent to peer into a space between some rusting ductwork. I watched him reach in, like he expected the doll to pop out at him. "Aha," he said, voice full of triumph before turning to disappointment. "Nothing."

The emptiness of the room pressed down on us, the bare concrete more menacing than any doll could have been. I watched Lyle, saw his patience drain as we searched and came up empty again and again.

"We're not lying," I said. "Something’s going on here, even if we don’t understand it."

Lyle marched back to the ladder, frustration lining every step. "I’ve had enough of this wild goose chase," he said, climbing faster than I'd ever seen him move. "I want you all back to real work by noon."

We stood there, three fools in a hole, as his voice trailed up the concrete walls and faded into silence. As Lyle went back up the ladder, we all lingered in the sub basement looking around as if expecting the things we saw to show up as soon as he had left.

Suddenly, Mark clutched his head with both hands and groaned in pain.

"Man, my brain's gonna explode," he said, sinking to his knees. The bravado was gone from his voice, leaving something raw and pained in its place.

"What's wrong?" I asked, rushing over to him.

Jake joined me, crouching low. "Is it the dust?" he said, as though Mark were having an allergic reaction and not about to keel over.

"It's something, in my head…" Mark said, wincing as he fought to get the words out. "Messing with me. Break, it wants to break…it says I am it…"

Lyle was on the ladder, almost back to the top. He must have heard Mark, because he called back down to us.

"What's he on about now?" he said, his voice sharper than it needed to be.

Mark’s face was a mask of sweat and pain, and the vein in his forehead stood out like it was about to burst. "Feels like it's cracking open," he said. His voice broke, and I could hear real fear in it now.

"We need to get him out of here," I said, looking from Jake to Lyle and back again.

Lyle came back down and was next to us, breathing heavily from the short run across the room. "Let's go," he said, urgency creeping in.

They grabbed Mark under the arms, trying to lift him, but he slipped through their hands and hit the floor hard. His whole body tensed, and he shook like he was being electrocuted.

"Seizure!" I yelled. "He's having a seizure!"

"Hold him steady," Jake said. "Don't let him hurt himself." He was all business, even now, but I could hear the tremor in his voice.

Mark convulsed in their grip, his muscles rigid as steel. I dropped down and cradled his head in my hands, feeling the slickness of his sweat, the awful heat radiating off him.

Lyle tried to help, his gruffness replaced by frantic energy. "Don't just sit there," he barked, more out of desperation than anger. "We need to move him!"

I felt my stomach twist as I watched Mark thrash and jerk. It was like he was being puppeteered by something inside him, something we couldn't see.

Then, as quickly as it started, it stopped. Mark went limp, his head lolling to the side, eyes half-open and vacant.

Jake looked at me, a question in his eyes. I had no answers for him, only the hollow pit of dread that had settled in my gut.

"Is he..." I couldn't finish the sentence.

"We need to try," Jake said. "Get him to a hospital. Now."

Lyle pulled at Mark's arms again. This time, there was no resistance. The absence of struggle was worse than the convulsions.

We hauled him to the ladder, his feet dragging on the ground, his head bobbing as though detached. Every second was an eternity, the silence louder than any of Mark's screams had been.

And then he twitched. Once. Twice.

"He's coming to!" I said. Relief and fear tangled in my throat.

Mark's body jerked upright, rigid again but different this time. His face contorted, then stilled. His mouth stretched wide, soundless and empty.

Something split. A crack ran through the side of his head, opening like a wound, and a sickly light poured out.

We stumbled back, the three of us, falling over ourselves to get away.

"Jesus," Lyle said, his voice strangled.

Mark stayed there, perched like a broken marionette, that awful light leaking from him in unnatural bursts.

"What the actual hell!" Jake screamed.

We stood frozen, helpless and horrified, as Mark's body spasmed again. He looked dead, and yet he moved, moved in ways that no living thing should move.

Then he was still, and for a heartbeat I thought it was over.

Until he turned toward us.

His limbs jerked into action, mechanical and precise. His head flopped to one side, the light still spilling out like the eye of a monster. The splitting, tearing sound was awful as he twitched spasmodically and the worst part was the breaking and shifting of his skull and pieces came apart and rearranged themselves.

He took a step. Then another.

"Mark?" I said, a pitiful plea. I barely recognized my own voice.

He didn't answer, didn't even look like he heard me.

Lyle and Jake stood dumbfounded, rooted to the spot.

I grabbed Jake's arm, pulling him back. "We gotta go," I said.

Mark kept coming, relentless, each step more sure than the last.

Lyle snapped out of it, grabbing a piece of metal pipe, holding it like a weapon.

"It won't stop," Jake said, backing away.

I watched as Mark reached us, saw Lyle swing the pipe. It connected with a sickening crack that split Mark’s head open even further. He did not fall down, his bones contorted and reshuffled after the impact. Even with the force sounding loud enough to have shattered his spine, the thing that was once Mark forced its destroyed face to look at us again and it gurgled an almost imperceptible word through its ruined face.

“…Run!”

We heeded the advice and ran, the shock wearing off enough to get us moving.

"It's still him," I said. "It's still him, and it's not."

Mark followed, that terrible light blazing out of his shattered and broken head. We reached the ladder, and I almost thought we'd make it.

But a wall of debris had formed in front of us, blocking the exit, an impossible mass of twisted metal, plastic and what appeared to be doll heads.

And worse, what looked like fragments of real skulls, cracked and hollow like the doll heads we'd found.

We were trapped, trapped with a thing that wore Mark’s skin.

"Keep moving," Lyle yelled, his voice cracking.

But it was useless, and we knew it.

Mark’s voice rattled the air with a brittle edge, sharp and jagged like the wind through broken glass. It seemed to come from everywhere at once, shrill and echoing in the tight confines of the sub-basement.

The words were unintelligible but held a terrible urgency. The more we tried to listen, the more it filled our heads, pressing in until we thought our own skulls might split.

Jake pulled me toward the darkened corridors at the far side of the room. We sprinted into the unknown, stumbling and gasping, the sound of Mark’s pursuit always close behind. His footsteps were deliberate and steady, gaining on us with a patience that only increased our panic.

"This way," Lyle yelled, as much a command as it was a plea.

He led us through the maze of old pipes and low-hanging beams, his long strides keeping pace just ahead of Jake and me.

The path wound back toward the stairs, an open expanse that would leave us exposed. We hesitated, and that split second cost us.

Mark rounded the corner, sudden and implacable. The sickly light from his head cut through the dimness, throwing a grotesque shadow of himself across the walls.

Lyle shoved Jake and me toward a side room. "Go!" he said, the words ripped from his throat with desperate urgency.

We staggered through the narrow doorframe, spinning to see Mark bear down on him.

"Lyle, watch out!" Jake cried, his voice raw and filled with the helplessness I felt gnawing at me.

But Lyle didn't flinch. He raised the metal pipe in one last defiant swing.

Mark took the hit with a grotesque jerk of his shoulders, but it didn't stop him. He reached Lyle in three long strides, arms moving with that same puppet-like speed, grasping, pulling.

And then Lyle screamed, a sound so full of agony and defiance that it froze me in place.

Mark had him by the neck, forcing him to his knees.

The crack came next, sharp and dreadful, the same sound that had come from Mark only minutes before.

I watched in horror as Lyle’s head split open, the light exploding outward like a grotesque birth. It radiated through the space, blinding us with its unnatural brilliance. That creature that had once been Mark Gurgled something out loud that sounded like,

“You are it.”

The scream ended abruptly. Lyle went limp, collapsing to the ground, the glow from his head casting an eerie halo around his body.

"Run," Jake said, the single word a shattered whisper in the oppressive silence.