Chapter 9: Baiting the Blank

Chapter 9: Baiting the Blank

The decision to fight was a strange and terrible liberation. The fear did not vanish—it was a cold, permanent resident in Liam’s bones now—but it was no longer in control. They were no longer prey fleeing through the woods; they were cornered animals, turning to face their tormentor on their own terms, in their own territory.

Their home, once a sanctuary, was now a deliberate killing ground. Liam placed his laptop on the coffee table in the center of the living room, the heart of the house. The screen glowed, a malevolent blue eye in the dimness. He had resurrected the corrupted photo files, the ones that had vanished from his hard drive but remained on his backup. He set them to play on a loop: a nightmarish slideshow of a dark, empty forest, followed by the glitched, pixelated remnant of the creature’s kill. A digital siren’s call, broadcasting a signal of pain and violation into the ether.

On the table beside the laptop, he placed two objects: the small, black SD card—the anchor—and a heavy claw hammer from his toolbox.

“When it shows,” he said to Sarah, his voice a low murmur that barely disturbed the thick silence, “it’s going to go for the laptop. That’s the echo. It will be focused on that. That’s when I smash the card.”

Sarah nodded, her face pale but set. She stood near the arched doorway to the hall, the iron fireplace poker held in a two-handed grip. She was a sentinel guarding the entrance to hell. “What if it doesn’t go for the laptop? What if it goes for us?”

“Then you use that,” he said, nodding toward the poker. The inadequacy of the weapon was terrifyingly obvious, but it was all they had.

They took their positions. Liam sat on the edge of the sofa, his hand resting on the cool metal of the hammer. Sarah stood by the doorway, her back to the wall, her eyes scanning the shadows. And they waited.

The silence was the first form of torture. It pressed in on them, vast and absolute. Minutes stretched into an eternity. The only sound was the faint hum of the laptop and the frantic thumping of Liam’s own heart. He watched the screen, the endless loop of empty trees and digital static. He began to doubt. Had he been wrong? Was the forum post just the ramblings of a madman? Was the creature outside, content to simply watch them descend into their own paranoia?

Then, the tapping started.

It wasn't from the windows. It was from upstairs. A light, rhythmic tap-tap-tap against a hollow wooden door. It sounded exactly like their daughter, Maya, trying to get his attention when she was a child. The sound was so familiar, so domestic, it was a thousand times more terrifying than any monstrous scraping.

Sarah’s head snapped up, her eyes wide with a new kind of fear. “Did you hear that?” she breathed.

“Don’t move,” Liam commanded, his voice tight. “It’s a trick. It’s trying to draw us out. Separate us.”

The tapping stopped. The silence rushed back in, heavier this time, charged with malice. Suddenly, the television on the far wall flickered to life. Not to a channel, but to a screen of roaring, black-and-white static. The sound was a harsh, deafening shriek that filled the room, making their teeth ache. Liam flinched, his hand tightening on the hammer, but he kept his eyes locked on the space around the laptop.

As abruptly as it began, the static cut out. In the ringing silence that followed, the landline phone on the end table began to ring. A shrill, piercing summons that carved through their frayed nerves. Neither of them moved. It rang five times, six, seven, before stopping. On the small caller ID screen, a single word glowed in green pixels: CARTER.

“It’s in the house,” Sarah whispered, her voice trembling. “It’s not just outside anymore. It’s inside with us.”

The Glimmer was not some mindless beast, blindly drawn to the bait. It was intelligent. It was cunning. It was playing with them, turning the familiar comforts of their home into instruments of psychological warfare. It was testing their sanity before it revealed itself.

A wave of intense cold washed through the hallway where Sarah stood, so profound that Liam saw her shiver, her breath misting in the air. At the same moment, the cloying, coppery smell of blood filled the living room, thick and overwhelming, making him gag. He looked wildly around, but there was nothing there. It was a phantom, an assault on the senses.

He glanced at the mantelpiece, where a row of silver-framed photographs chronicled their family’s life. His eyes snagged on one in the center: a picture of Josh and Maya, aged ten, grinning with missing teeth on a sunny beach. A moment ago, it had been standing upright. Now, it was turned facedown.

No one had touched it.

“Liam,” Sarah’s voice was strained, a tight wire of fear. “It knows. It knows what we’re doing.”

The house groaned around them, the settling sounds of an old structure now imbued with sinister intent. A floorboard creaked upstairs. A faucet in the kitchen dripped once, a loud, metallic plink that echoed in the silence. The creature was moving, exploring its new cage, their cage. It was a sadistic game of cat and mouse, and the house itself was the board.

The final act of the overture was a loud, violent crash from upstairs, from the direction of their bedroom. The sound of splintering wood and shattering glass. It was a raw, physical sound, completely different from the ghostly tricks it had been playing. It was a direct challenge.

Sarah jumped, her grip on the poker so tight her knuckles were bloodless. “What was that?”

“Stay here,” Liam ordered, his own resolve wavering. He had to know. He had to see.

“No! Don’t you dare!” she hissed, her fear morphing into anger. “That’s what it wants!”

He knew she was right, but the need to confront the escalating terror was overpowering. He stood up slowly, the hammer feeling heavy and useless in his hand. Together, moving as one, they began to creep toward the hallway, toward the base of the stairs. They moved with a painful slowness, every sense screaming, their eyes trying to pierce the oppressive darkness that pooled at the top of the landing.

They reached the foot of the stairs and peered up into the gloom. Nothing. The hallway above was silent and still. The bedroom door was closed.

Then, the lights went out.

Not a flicker, but a sudden, total plunge into absolute blackness. The laptop screen died. The caller ID went dark. The entire power grid of the house was severed in an instant. They were plunged into a darkness so complete it felt like a physical substance, thick and suffocating. The only thing Liam could hear was Sarah’s sharp, terrified intake of breath beside him and the frantic, useless beating of his own heart.

The trap had been sprung. But they were not the hunters. They were the bait. And in the silent, waiting dark, they both knew with sickening certainty that the Glimmer was no longer playing. The hunt had begun.