Noon-Time Horror Show

Hello again everyone, Thaddeus Grimwald here. To be honest, I never really expected my last story to be read much, let alone receive any kind of praise. When it turned out that there were more than a few people who not only read but fully appreciated what The Santo Nino of Innocencia was really about, I was quite pleased even though it didn’t garner as much attention as a typical Creepypasta story. So, since November 1 is well on its way, here’s another horror story for all of you.

If you think you’ve still got the courage for another story of supernatural horror, then make sure all your doors and windows are locked, all the lights in your home are on and make yourself comfortable for another horror story…

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This story is dedicated to someone who may or may not know my true identity…

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Yvonne “Yummy” Gomez was a normal college girl with normal problems. She was no different from most young women struggling with their studies but she did have a strength of character and sense of independence that many found laudable. However, her strength and independence would soon be put to the test when ultimate evil came to her doorstep…

The eldest of three children, Yummy was often in charge of her little brothers Jesse and CJ. Their father was a half-American and worked as a sailor in the US Navy while their mother was an OFW who worked as a nurse in the UK. This meant that Yummy was often responsible for her brothers and this was a task she took seriously and made sure to do so regularly.

While she was quite ordinary in a lot of ways, Yummy also had a lot of traits that set her apart from the girls in a class. For one, she loved to read books and was fond of stories that provided a deep story and a meaningful relationship between characters. She was quite the beauty with her large, dark eyes, long dark hair that reached her waist and skin as white and smooth as porcelain. Also, she had a very supple body as she was the school’s champion rhythmic gymnast and was well known for her toned thighs and shapely calves.

However, she was far from perfect as she possessed her own disadvantages and weaknesses. For instance, there was her debilitating fear of spiders or other many-legged creatures like centipedes and crabs. Also while she enjoyed reading romance, she fared poorly in other genres that weren’t related to love and she was never really too savvy when it came to key figures of world history and she sometimes mistook Jeanne d’Arc for Lady Godiva. Lastly, her greatest frustration was that she often felt flat as an ironing board compared to her classmates with just an average bust.

Nonetheless, she always tried to make do with what she had. She trained and worked out regularly to maintain her figure so she wouldn’t fall behind her female classmates who were much more “blessed” than her when it came to the looks department. She also sought help from other classmates about topics and books she didn’t clearly understand or had trouble remembering. Most of all though, while she was a shopaholic like most of her friends, she was often kind to less fortunate people and she would always give alms to an old lady beggar who could often be found at the side of the shopping mall Yummy regularly went to.

Despite it all, Yummy was on the path to progress and a promising career until certain events and certain forces take her on a harrowing journey that will test her wit and courage…

It all began with the introduction of a new noon-time TV show called Party Time. Hosted by a man named Billy Sevillame, Party Time seemed like your typical noon-time show with various song and dance routines, prize-winning game segments and cheesy attempts at comedy by its hosts. Billy Sevillame was accompanied by his co-hosts Annie Kurtis, a pretty half-Australian woman and Beauty V, an obnoxious and effeminate gay comedian.

Party Time did have a few unique segments and elements but Yummy found that these only made the show even more difficult to watch. There was Silly Cinema that required hosts to get members of the audience to make complete idiots of themselves on stage while following a bizarre script that made little sense to anyone save perhaps for the hosts who all seemed demented in their own way. There was also the segment before the games when contestants would be made to introduce themselves and tell their life’s story in the most emotional way possible, often calling up crocodile tears which they probably hoped would make them look more sympathetic but, in reality, made them only look ridiculously pathetic and laughably weak. Lastly, there was what the hosts liked to call a “street-serye” which involved some of the cast and crew going door to door outside the studio to visit their audience personally which soon took on a new life of its own when a fan-preferred couple composed of Bethany Apostol and Logan Enriquez, became the country’s favorite love team known as BethLogs.

Truth be told, Yummy had never been fond of noon-time shows and their antics because of a number of things and Party Time checked just about all of them. Many of its segments were utterly useless like Silly Cinema and, even if they were funny, many of their jokes were more about making fun of people’s appearance and trampling their dignity. Yummy was especially disgusted with people like Beauty V. who seemed to take sadistic pleasure in making people do humiliating stunts and insulting those he deemed not attractive and Yummy once turned off the TV in anger when Beauty V. began victimizing a young Down’s Syndrome kid by making the latter behave like a dog. It was also more than little nauseating when the love tandem BethLogs milked the popularity of their relationship for all it was worth even though it was more than a little obvious that their so-called “love” was just an act and that they were just pretending to be a love-team so that more people would watch the show. What Yummy hated the most though was the way Billy Sevillame made the various contestants tell their life’s story in a very dramatic fashion as if they were the only victims of poverty and inequality in the Philippines and then giving them huge prizes that they were more likely than not going to simply spend all in one week. Truth was, while Yummy had nothing against giving money to the poor and sympathizing with less fortunate people, she thought that making people bawl their eyes out on live TV so that they could get money and other prizes only encouraged them to play the victim card to get their way and, more likely than not, made them dependent on dole-outs.

Then, one day, it turns out that Yummy’s brothers were invited to Party Time along with their friends. While she balked at first, she decided to let her brothers go anyway, thinking that they had a right to enjoy themselves from time to time and this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity after all. However, she did not go with them as she had an exam to prepare for at the time.

She was only able to see them on TV during lunch break and, much to her joy, they had won a prizes in one of the game shows. Jesse had won a new silver Ducati motorcycle while CJ had won a flatscreen TV and both were personally congratulated by the host Billy Sevillame himself. Her brothers came home that night, bright smiles on their faces while bringing along their prizes, secure and unseen inside their boxes. When Yummy wanted to help, the both of them insisted that they could carry, open and prepare their new toys accordingly. Yummy thought nothing of it and let her brothers at it.

Not long after some of her friends and acquaintances were also involved in the show with some being invited to the studio while some were visited by the street-serye and the BethLogs tandem. While it did seem kind of strange, it never really bothered Yummy at all. After all, there were always coincidences or so Yummy liked to think.

However, since they came home that fateful night, Yummy saw a sudden and disturbing change in her brothers along with her friends who eventually showed up in Party Time and won prizes of their own…

One of her first strange experiences with Party Time was when she was quietly eating at the school cafeteria and the show was playing on an overhead TV. Everyone in the cafeteria was transfixed by the program on TV wherein a woman who claimed to be from a squatter area in Manila and was bawling her eyes out that the authorities were coming to demolish their home so she really needed to win at least something. Billy Sevillame assured her that she didn’t need to worry about it as Party Time saw that people like the woman in question got something for their troubles as it was only right that victims like her got something for their troubles.

Then the scene suddenly changed…

The woman was still there, however everything that surrounded her, including Billy Sevillame, had somehow changed. The audience around her had changed from a crowd of otherwise normal people to a mass of flayed horrors, screaming, moaning and writhing in agony. The stage was now patrolled and guarded by enormous black beasts that were like the result of a mating between a large pitbull and a monstrous mountain goat. The crew in the show were no longer human and were replaced with enormous, obsidian-skinned demons with muscled human bodies but with the heads of great-horned bulls. The mangled audience, dog-goat things and the bull demons all possessed glowing red eyes that burned like embers and, while the woman continued to cry for the camera, everything inside the studio turned to stare at the TV screen and at whoever was watching. Their burning red eyes bored into Yummy and she barely managed to contain a scream.

Then she blinked and the scene changed back to what it was before…

Her friends who were watching didn’t at all seem perturbed by what just transpired and continued giggling and yipping, especially when the BethLogs couple finally appeared onscreen. Yummy then asked them if there had been any commercial or if they noticed anything strange happening to the show. They only shook their heads at her as if she had asked a silly question and returned to laughing at all the lame jokes and squeeing to the cheesy antics of Bethany and Logan.

But there was one person who seemed to have seen the same thing. He sat watching the TV, seeming like everyone else who didn’t notice anything different. However, Yummy saw it in his eyes. Something had scared him deeply.

His name, if Yummy remembered correctly, was Timothy and often went simply by Tim. He was her senior and was good friends with her little brother CJ in the school’s Chess Club. She never really knew him too well and was even more than a little suspicious of him because of circulating rumors that he was a “pervert” of some kind.

Nonetheless, when he caught her look, an understanding passed between them.

“You saw it too.” He never said those words, but that was the look he gave her. Then he looked away, seemed to find something interesting in the notebook he held and Yummy quickly put it out of her mind.

It would not be until Yummy learned of the terrible fate of her friend Dana that she would realize that something was desperately wrong with Party Time and those who got involved with the show…

Dana was one of her many friends in school and was also actually the girlfriend of Timmy. While they weren’t particularly close, Yummy always thought of Dana as a kind of big sister figure just as, perhaps, her brother saw Timmy as a big brother of sorts. She was often the happy type and Yummy had always envied her enthusiasm in everything that she did.

Then, one day, as fate would have it, the crew of Party Time came to Dana’s house along with the BethLogs couple, announcing that she had won a Fortuner as a prize. Of course, the young woman was overjoyed and claimed that it was almost too good to be true. However, that was when things went terribly downhill for Dana, her family and everyone who knew her.

She soon became a deeply withdrawn young woman who stopped being the cheerful spirit she had once been. She had become an empty shell of her former self and rarely spoke to anyone. Rumor had it that she had broken up with Tim but, apparently, that was only scratching the surface of what was really going on. It would only be later that Yummy would discover the horrifying truth about what was happening at the time.

Dana and her family would then become victims of a terrible tragedy wherein they would all die in a murder-suicide by her own father. One night, defeated by despair and fueled by rage, Dana’s father tied up his beloved daughter as well as the rest of their family inside a beat-up old van and drove it off a bridge and into a raging river in the midst of a storm. All of them drowned, leaving behind bafflement and dread in their wake. And Dana was not the only victim; there was a lady who was at the show who committed suicide and took her baby son with her by immersing themselves in a bathtub and electrocuting themselves with a new sound system she had won at Party Time, there was the man who jumped off a building with his daughter while holding a new smartphone he had for a prize and then there was another family massacre that involved both parents burning their home down with their children using a microwave oven they had won and a tank of propane.

Then there were Yummy’s brothers whose attitudes worsened. Jesse often went out on his motorcycle, coming and going with a passenger Yummy didn’t recognize and whom Jesse wouldn’t even talk about and insisted, often in an angry voice, that he didn’t know what his sister was even talking about. CJ barely came out of his room (if he even came out at all) and Yummy began to feel seriously scared for her youngest brother.

Meanwhile, even with all the many tragedies happening, a lot of people (including Yummy’s classmates and friends) continued to watch Party Time, claiming that it kept them happy despite the stresses of their life. Once, when Yummy called out her classmates when they seemed oblivious to the tragedies that seemed related to the show, they were quick to retaliate and defend Party Time, claiming that she was nothing more than a bitter and cynical young woman. They went on to insinuate that the tragic and terrifying murder-suicides that occurred had nothing to do with their favorite noon-time show and they insisted that they were probably depressed or crazy to begin with. According to them, Party Time was a show that promoted happiness in people and was therefore beneficial to society as a whole. Yummy was then ostracized by former friends who now believed her to be a killjoy trying to ruin their fun.

In the days that followed, Yummy hung out alone at the mall, often sad and worrying about her now estranged brothers as well as wondering about her friends’ new behavior. One day, she remembered Old Lola Bashang outside and bought some flavored bread to give to the old beggar. Much to her surprise, it was as if the old woman was waiting for her.

The old woman was indeed just another beggar and collector of cans and bottles but, more often than not, Yummy found her both dignified and with an air of something she couldn’t quite place. Indeed, while Yummy often disliked most beggars (especially pesky kids who were either under the employ of crime syndicates or probably weren’t poor at all), she had a soft spots for old beggars like Lola Bashang. Also, on the rare occasion that Yummy, her brothers or some of her friends tried to talk to the old woman, she would tell them things that were both insightful and wise. Once, she had told them that while being happy was good, trying to be happy all the time was nothing more than insanity and that it was only human nature to be sad or angry from time to time. She was also quick to point out that marriage wasn’t the end or ultimate goal of life, as often shown on TV, and that love wasn’t the result of desperation but of trust. Of course, Yummy’s friends who didn’t understand what the old woman was saying simply thought her crazy and left it at that. Yummy, on the other hand, sometimes stayed to listen which she felt made the old woman feel better and also gave her some form of wisdom. A win-win situation in her book.

This time however, Lola Bashang seemed more than a little distraught. She seemed worried and the minute she saw Yummy, she gestured for the young woman to come closer. Then she began to say things that deeply frightened Yummy.

Lola Bashang began to talk about a being she called “The Crawling Chaos”. She described this being as a horror that often took the shape of a man but was, in reality, a devil in disguise. A horror from before Creation, “The Crawling Chaos” often moved unseen and unnoticed amid the throng of humanity, destroying those he encountered with plagues that were disguised as blessings. He rarely revealed himself to humanity save for his victims right before he devoured their souls and those who angered him. He had countless forms he could take on but always, his goal was to corrupt people he encountered and drive them into a frenzy of madness and suicide.

Yummy thought that the old woman had finally lost her mind. She tried to give her the bread she had bought for Lola Bashang but the old woman refused. Instead, the old woman tried to give her a beat-up old backpack she traveled with. This scared Yummy and she tried to refuse but the old woman wouldn’t stop her ranting and raving. She begged Yummy to take the bag. She wept and shouted saying that Yummy and her family were in danger and that she would need it to protect herself from “The Crawling Chaos”. In the end, Yummy had no choice but to take the bag as she worried that refusing would have given the poor old woman a heart attack.

Reluctantly, Yummy left the mall with the old woman’s ragged old backpack. Then, almost by coincidence, she ran into Tim. He looked a little distraught but had a determined look that surprised Yummy.

It seemed to take a while before he recognized her but when he did, he immediately asked about her brothers. When she spoke of how much her brothers changed, Tim’s expression became fearful. He invited her to his home where they could discuss the issue more thoroughly but Yummy wanted to go home. Deciding not to push the conversation, Tim just gave her his number before walking away.

That night, Yummy felt deeply worried about her brothers and decided to check on them. Unfortunately, Jesse was out and CJ refused to unlock the door to his room when she knocked. Deciding that it was time to take things into her own hands, Yummy took her chances.

Using her gymnastic skills, Yummy left her room through her window and clambered up onto her house’s roof. Carefully and as stealthily as she could, she made her way towards to CJ’s window. She saw flickering lights through her brother’s window and she knew that he must be watching TV.

Lowering herself cautiously to get a good view of her brother’s room, Yummy saw a good view at what her brother had become…

CJ sat in a room that had fallen into disarray and defilement. CJ had always been an ever conscious nerd but what Yummy saw through the window was a room littered with garbage and filth and infested with disgusting cockroaches, flies and maggots. The smell that wafted from CJ’s room almost overpowered Yummy and she almost lost her grip on her hand-hold on the roof. But there were two most prominent sights in CJ’s room and Yummy’s mouth could only drop wide open in terror and shock.

There was her brother CJ, now reduced to a shadow of his former self. He was mostly just skin and bone wrapped in dirty, filth-encrusted clothes that he probably hadn’t changed in weeks. CJ’s clothes now fit loosely on his body as he was now almost just a skeleton with a transfixed stare on a TV screen and Yummy could spot insects and centipedes crawling through the poor boy’s clothes.

Then there was the TV. The surprising part was, it wasn’t a flatscreen TV at all. It was an old model of television with a relatively small screen. What was more shocking though was what was on the TV proper. Yummy recognized the voice of the gay host of Party Time, Beauty V. but the words he was saying was something definitely not meant for a general audience. He spoke of things like rape and genocide and seemed to tell CJ of how pleasurable it would be to join the killing. Worst of all though was what was being shown on the TV was not Beauty V. at all. Instead, the head of a demonic black horse with bulging red eyes filled the screen and, somewhere behind it, thousands of melted and disfigured faces moaned and wailed in anguish. Then the demonic horse with Beauty V.’s voice and the agonized faces all stopped and turned to stare at Yummy through the window.

In her surprise and horror, Yummy lost her grip and fell off the roof. Luckily, she fell on a hedge which broke her fall although it still hurt her somewhat. It was also then when her other brother, Jesse arrived on his motorcycle.

For some reason, he wasn’t riding a Ducati motorcycle at all. Instead, he was riding an old and rickety motorbike of relatively cheap make and design. It didn’t just look secondhand, it looked like something recycled from a junkshop with spare parts. Having fallen into a hedge, Jesse had no idea she was watching him.

But what was most frightening was what rode with her brother. She had little idea of what to make of it, but it appeared to be a human-shaped bundle of black rags. Then, upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a hag of some kind, an ugly old woman whose hands were not hands at all but talons.

Yummy only hid in the bushes, too fearful to come out and waited until Jesse was back in the house before going back to her room.

The next day, Yummy finally called and visited Tim to hear his story and learn what really happened to Dana…

Tim began with how the Bethany and Logan came to Dana’s house to declare her and her family winners in one of their segments. Apparently, Tim had been there himself when it happened. When the BethLogs couple came to Dana’s house, there was something definitely suspicious about them. For one thing, they went out of their way to avoid mirrors in the house and how their dog went insane with fear and rage when it caught sight of them, peeing himself and nearly choking on its own leash and collar. Then there was the fact that Bethany cursed loudly at a maid who crossed herself in front of them and that Logan went to an altar in the house and made irreverent comments at various religious figures like the Virgin Mary and Job.

Tim found the odd behavior of Bethany and Logan very suspicious but Dana and the rest of her family failed to even notice this. In fact, they were so obsessed with the Fortuner that they won, they forgot almost everything else in their lives. They refused to even let Tim see their prize as they became so jealously protective of their new family car to ridiculous levels.

When Tim called Dana out on her and her family’s protectiveness of their new car, she was quick to lash out and break up with him. Dana and the rest of her family also suffered from fits of paranoia and irrational fear and refused to let anyone, even close friends and family, get a look at their new car. It was to the point that they even often called the police for the most trivial things and were always suspicious of people who even looked at them funny.

Then came the terrible day when Dana and the rest of her family died when Dana’s father drove a rust-bucket of a van off a bridge and into a deep river, drowning the entire family. Nobody really understood what had happened and where the family got their van. As it turns out though, Tim had gotten hold of a video taken from a CCTV camera mounted on the bridge where Dana’s family had committed suicide which he showed immediately to Yummy.

At first, nothing seemed to be wrong with the video, it was simply an old rickety van driving off a bridge. But then, Tim slowed the video a notch and Yummy noticed the obvious change. The van seemed to change along with a few other details as the video went along. Every few seconds or so, an image (albeit a false one), of a Fortuner would superimpose over the van. Then, around it, a dark cloud of something surrounded and followed the vehicle. When slowed down further, the cloud resolved itself into various moving shapes that still couldn’t clearly be seen. It was only when Tim slowed the video to its maximum setting that they saw that the shapes were actually large goat-dog things that were somehow herding the vehicle over the edge of the bridge.

Realizing what kind of danger her brothers were in, Yummy immediately went home to see what she could do to save them from their obsessions. It was night by the time she arrived and she felt alone in her house even though at least her brother CJ was home. She had little idea of what to do when she suddenly remembered Lola Bashang’s backpack from the day before.

She rummaged through it and found a number of curious items. Inside, she found a box of matches, a candle and a rusty old flashlight. Not knowing what to do with them, she put them aside and focused on a plan to somehow save her brothers from their respective obsessions. She decided at once that she would start with CJ. She found an old softball bat from her closet and made a plan to storm her brother’s room and destroy the TV with the bat. No sooner had she taken the bat out of the closet that the power suddenly went out.

However, while most of the house was plunged in darkness and silence, Yummy saw a familiar flickering light outside CJ’s window, accompanied by an all-too-familiar and annoying voice. The TV was somehow still on even without power. Yummy swallowed hard and began looking for something that could light her way. She was too frightened to go outside her room in the darkness as she could hear things out there, padding on both hooves and claws.

Soon, her hand found the candle she had found in Lola Bashang’s backpack. She then remembered a lighter in her drawer and brought it out to light the candle. Strangely enough, something happened that she did not expect. The light from her candle shone brighter than the overhead light in her room. It illuminated her room like a bright and steady torch. Also, wafting from the flame was a wonderful fragrance. Yummy could not describe it really but it was a smell that somehow defeated the stench coming from her brother’s room when she finally stood at his door.

Strangely enough, the moment she turned the knob, it opened even when her brother usually kept it tightly locked. There she found her brother seemingly frozen in place as he continued watching the TV that was not a flatscreen. The demonic horse-thing with Beauty V.’s voice locked its red eyes on Yummy at once. Before it could say anything however, Yummy brought the baseball bat down hard on the TV, breaking it and causing sparks and shorts. When she broke the screen, vile black goo spilled from it and, when it reached the floor, she saw that tiny shapes that were like cockroaches in the slime. Then she saw that these bugs had screaming and wailing human faces and almost dropped the candle. The sparks from the candle fell on the bugs and the goo that saturated them and instantly caught fire. The fire spread immediately unto and into the TV, burning it from both within and without but miraculously did not burn its surroundings.

Behind Yummy, CJ came to his senses after what seemed like months of being under a malevolent trance. He looked around himself by the light of Yummy’s candle and saw what his room had become and almost screamed. While certainly distressed, Yummy sighed in relief now that her brother was returning to normal.

Then, from somewhere outside, in the now pitch-black streets, the roaring engine of a motorcycle could be heard. Jesse was coming home in his own obsession. Yummy had one more brother to save.

The brownout made sure that the neighborhood was as dark as a cave. However, Jesse, while riding on his bike, glowed like a horseman of the apocalypse. A sickly yellowish-green light illuminated him amid the dark streets. Holding onto him was the same black-clad skeletal hag she saw the previous night, her hands ending in terrible bird-like claws.

When Jesse parked his bike in the garage and made his way through the dark and into the house, Yummy hid in the hedges after blowing out her candle so as not to give herself away. As soon as her brother was out of sight, she entered the garage, bat at the ready. Before she could get far though, she was immediately blocked by the hag who seemed to have been waiting for her.

The hag immediately attacked, grasping and clawing at her. All Yummy could do to fight back was swing the bat wildly at the monstrous woman and kicking at her. Unfortunately, the woman was stronger than human and Yummy knew well that she was at a terrible disadvantage. She soon had to let go of the candle in order to grip the bat with both hands. However, even that wasn’t enough to dissuade and repel the hag.

But then, much to Yummy’s surprise, CJ came out to help her. She didn’t expect her brother to recover so quickly, let alone understand what was happening, but he came out to help her just when she needed it. He came out and lit the candle she had dropped and, almost immediately, lit it and thrust it at the face of the hag.

The hag screamed in pain and flew off into the night. Then Yummy and CJ turned to the bike in the garage. CJ surprised his sister further when he simply threw the candle at the motorcycle.

The rickety, chop-shop motorcycle didn’t simply just burn up, it exploded almost instantly. However, the explosion seemed more like an expensive firework display rather than a simple combustion of chemicals. It burst apart with different colored fumes and sometimes the smoke took on the shapes of faces and accompanied by wailing voices.

Jesse stumbled out of the house, dumbfounded. It would take him a while to fully understand what had happened and only later would he discuss his experiences with his siblings. However, his mind, soul and life had been saved for now and that was at least one victory.

Unfortunately, things were far from over…

The next day, perhaps one of the most disturbing incidents involving Party Time would take place. It happened at its regular schedule but in an open public area. The entire cast was there with Billy Sevillame, Beauty V., Annie Kurtis, Bethany Apostol and Logan Enriquez. However, they were all surrounded by high fences that were electrified with a few thousand volts of electricity.

At first, Billy Sevillame only threw bags of freebies over the electrified fence. Most of these were small items like smartphones, handheld consoles to iPads. While it was quite dangerous, many came close to the fence just to catch one of the freebie bags even when they could very well have been electrocuted for their troubles. Then the cast and crew brought out their bigger prizes like their refrigerators, TVs, ovens and cars and the crowd lost their minds.

They rushed the fences even though it ensured an agonizing and horrifying death. They threw themselves onto the fences just for a chance to get a freebie, getting themselves electrocuted in the process. Men and women, old and young, all their bodies were reduced to masses of charred flesh as they threw themselves onto the electric fences. Smoke rose from the bodies that were burning inside out as their skinned blackened and their softer parts melted. People screamed in terrible agony as they were electrocuted to death but there was no escaping now that their bodies were piled and tangled with that of many others.

No one survived the incident and the staff of Party Time didn’t at all seem bothered by this. When asked by news crews, all Billy Sevillame would say on the matter that it was not his fault at all. It was the people who rushed the fences, he insisted, and neither he nor the staff of Party Time were therefore not responsible for the gruesome death of more than a few hundred people who attended the event. They were there to make people happy, Billy Sevillame insisted, not cause sadness or negativity and even made fun of the victims for their stupidity.

Yummy and her brothers could only watch in terror and disgust as the victims were shown. Faces charred beyond recognition and distorted in monstrous grins. Bodies and limbs of multiple people had melted together in the heat and it became difficult for some of the rescuers to separate them. Burnt clothes and burnt flesh smoked well even hours after the incident and many rescuers and viewers alike could only pray that majority of the victims died mercifully quick.

Still Billy Sevillame and the other hosts of the show only smiled and said that the incident wasn’t their fault so people shouldn’t blame them. Bethany and Logan even invited viewers to continue watching Party Time even after the horrific tragedy that took place. Worse yet, hardcore fans of the show were undeterred and, as expected, were more than happy to follow the advice of the BethLogs couple.

That night, along with her brothers, Yummy made a vow that it was time to put an end to Party Time and whatever evil was behind it…

The first thing Yummy did the next morning was go to Tim’s house with her brothers. There, Yummy and her brothers decided to discuss what they knew about Party Time. First, Yummy discussed everything she knew. She told them about the other victims and Lola Bashang’s almost miraculous intervention with items that somehow had the power to suppress and destroy those that were associated with Party Time.

Then it was Tim’s turn. Tim immediately went to the point that “Crawling Chaos” was a moniker used by an entity known as Nyarlathotep in the works of H.P. Lovecraft. Nyarlathotep was a being not so different from Satan, in that he led humans astray with dark miracles and promises of salvation. The Crawling Chaos had countless forms but his purpose was always the same: to sow chaos and madness in the hearts of people.

Finally, Jesse, who had been quiet for quite some time, finally made his contribution. Apparently, his nights out on his motorcycle weren’t just about aimless wandering. While he indeed drove the bike, the bike also drove him in a sense and it always took him to places he didn’t like. He wasn’t alone either; there were quite a few others as well, those who won vehicles in the various contests were also with him. He remembered some of them. There was a guy who won a Harley Davidson, a man with a Volkswagen, a woman with a Toyota Corola and then there was Dana and her family for a while before they met their end.

They would go to places where the staff of Party Time went when they weren’t on the air. Jesse stopped, hesitating to continue and then somehow found the courage to go on. He confirmed what the others already knew; the staff of Party Time were not human. Maybe some of them were before, but had clearly gone past that point by now. They used a form of dark magic, similar to the dark magic in the prizes they gave away, to control people and make them see what they wanted to see and hear what they wanted to hear. Sometimes though, their glamour would weaken and you’d see just enough to know that something was seriously wrong with them. Maybe all you’d get was a glimpse but that would enough for you to see that Party Time was bad, bad news.

They traveled together, following the off-duty staff of Party Time, like flies following blood-caked predators. And that’s what they really were. Predators. Beasts. Demons. They gathered around places of evil. Places where the corpses of murder victims were dumped, homes where families were tearing themselves apart both figuratively and literally and hidden hideaways where the innocence of children were defiled.

While Jesse and those with him never took part in the activities, they were often there to witness it, hidden by the dark magics of the staff of Party Time, who seemed to feed on the evil of such activities. Jesse never fully understood why they were made to follow although he had his own uneasy theory: they were trying to make him and others like him become beings similar to the staff of Party Time. They were being exposed to evil so that they would somehow become horrific beings as well. It was similar to the way radiation mutated organisms.

Checking the contents of Lola Bashang’s backpack, Tim began to put forth a plan to somehow put an end to Party Time. They would need to time it well and they would have to do it soon. Tomorrow would be another big event for Party Time and it was likely that they would get more victims unless something was done.

And so, Yummy, Jesse, CJ and Tim made their plans…

The very next day, the four went to the venue where Party Time would take place: a water-themed theme park. While there were a lot of people, few noticed them and they kept going, hoping to be able to sneak into the backstage and do what they needed to do. They moved quietly, walking past throngs of people shouting the names of the hosts of Party Time who they worshiped like gods. A group of high-schoolers were even shouting “BethLogs” repeatedly at the top of their lungs as they struggled to get a closer look at their idols.

Billy Sevillame, dressed in immaculate white was this time at the center of a stage on a pool which was connected by a bridge. Already, he was throwing freebies this way and that which people there were more than happy to grab and fight over. He even laughed when some people fell into the water while fighting over a smartphone.

The band of youths soon made into the backstage and, seeing little opposition, hurried towards their destination: the stage where Billy Sevillame stood and entranced the people like some dark messiah, which he probably was. Before they reached their destination however, they were stopped by Annie Kurtis. She stood in front of them, arms crossed over her chest, her expression outraged and questioning.

“Who do you think you are?” she asked. “And what are you doing here?”

Before she could ask anything else, Yummy took out the old flashlight and shone it on the young woman. She screamed in horror and surprise and her form changed almost instantly. The pretty and young half-Australian woman people saw on TV wasn’t what she seemed to be. She was a hag who looked way past a hundred all dressed in ragged black rags. Her face belonged more to a mummified corpse than a human woman. But what really set her apart were her eyes, mouth and hands. Her eyes burned a bright red-orange as if they were portals to Hell and her teeth were like jagged shards of glass. He hands weren’t hands at all but were the talons of birds of prey like that of an eagle or owl. The light from the flashlight kept her at bay and it was then that Jesse took out the box of matches, scratched one to light, creating bright sparkles as it did and flicking it at the desiccated horror in front of them.

Annie Kurtis, or whatever it was that pretended to be her, caught fire instantly and screamed in rage. Her rags caught fire and soon she was almost entirely consumed by the flames. She was reduced to ash in seconds while her flesh went up in foul-smelling smoke.

The gang walked on, sighing in relief that the battle with Annie Kurtis ended quickly. But then, Beauty V. burst out of a nearby door to meet them. Unlike Annie Kurtis, he knew that they already knew what he was and would kill him if they could. So he fought in his true form: a horrifying black horse with red eyes and a mouth that was filled with fangs.

He attacked Yummy first, knocking her aside and targeted the weakest of the group, CJ. It tried to snap at him with its fanged horror of a mouth but, luckily, Tim stepped in to save the young boy. He grabbed the monstrous horse by the neck and began to pray which caused Beauty V. to scream in agony. The monstrous horse’s eyes bulged in its sockets as Tim held on with all his strength and calling to the Lord for help. Smoke curled from Beauty V.’s tongue but even Tim knew it would take more than prayer to kill the beast that was Beauty V.

Then Jesse once again stepped forward, a lit match in his hand which he plunged into Beauty V.’s screaming mouth. Jesse snatched his hand back before the equine horror could bite it and Tim shoved the beast as far as he could as it began to wheeze and buck. While the lit match probably went down the Beauty V.’s gullet it did not go out. In fact the opposite was happening as the thing began to burn from the inside out. Beauty V. tried to hurl insults at the four but its throat was already on fire and it was dying as flames issued from its mouth and its eyes melted from the heat. Soon, Beauty V. was reduced to a puddle of burning tar that bubbled as it boiled away.

Yummy, who got her breath back, got up and led the others forward. They hadn’t gotten far when they encountered their next obstacle. It was Bethany Apostol and Logan Enriquez.

Both had an innocent and pleading look to them. They demanded that the four stop what they were doing and leave them alone. After all, who were they to stop people from having fun? How dare they get in the way of people’s happiness. Party Time was just trying to make people feel good about themselves and provide a reprieve from the difficulties of life. The BethLogs couple called out the four on being people who ruin other people’s joy and were probably just bitter about themselves.

But then Tim had something to say and let loose his pent up emotions. How could Bethany and Logan claim to be making people happy when it was they who were making people’s lives miserable? How could they even talk about people’s joy when it was they who robbed innocents of it? If anything, they only desensitized people to their sadness instead of making them confront their inner demons and finding a way to deal with them. At the end of the day, Party Time did not solve people’s problems but instead encouraged them to delay and procrastinate, making their problems worse. It also made them dependent on freebies and dole-outs instead of making them self-efficient and strong-willed, leading them to become weak and foolish.

Then the BethLogs couple realized that they could not sway the four to their way of thinking. They then took on their real form which was by far the most horrific. Bethany Apostol and Logan Enriquez weren’t actually two people but a single being with four legs, four arms and two heads, all attached to a single torso. Its body was covered with wide, staring eyes and snapping human mouths. Its heads did not feature human faces but instead possessed human genitals, with the left possessing a man’s reproductive organs while the right had a woman’s.

Tim stumbled back at the BethLogs creature as it charged. It grabbed Jesse first, preventing the young man from lighting a match. Yummy desperately tried to wrench at its arms to free her brother but it was much too strong.

Then Tim took Yummy’s flashlight and shone it at the horror that was the BethLogs couple. It shrieked in what seemed like surprise and pain and fell back a step. That’s when CJ saw his opportunity and picked up the matchbox, quickly lit one and threw it at the BethLogs monster. It didn’t quite catch fire as quickly as the first two but being on fire allowed Yummy and Jesse to fight it off more quickly and easily. It roared and screamed as it clambered about the corridor while still on fire.

Seeing that they now had only one more enemy to face, Yummy and the others went to confront Billy Sevillame who was, more than likely to be Nyarlathotep himself…

What greeted them at the stage was something out of a nightmare. The waters of the pool below and around the stage had turned pitch-black like tar and they could see tentacles squirming around just below the surface. Billy Sevillame was chanting in a language that didn’t sound like any known language and he smiled at the four when they finally came up to him.

The crowd around the pool was hypnotized, swaying to music that only they could hear. Whatever horror lurked in the pool was waking up and it was hungry. Billy intended to feed the people to it. He was calling to it with the language he spoke.

CJ shone Lola Bashang’s flashlight on him but Billy only laughed even as the light revealed his true form. He became an enormous demonic figure, all horns and teeth and solid muscle. It was a forest of muscular arms which ended in hands with mouths in the palms. Billy, or what was pretending to be Billy, only laughed at the tiny flashlight and stepped forward.

Jesse threw lit matches at Billy, or more appropriately Nyarlathotep, but he only batted them aside, laughing. The four could only back away slowly as they knew they could now do little against the abomination before them. Then Yummy did something unbelievable she thrust forward Lola Bashang’s bag and something did happen.

First it was a weak wind but gradually gained strength. Nyarlathotep’s eyes widened as he realized what was happening. The bag was becoming a vortex and it was sucking in air and a bright blue light shone from within. First it started with the black water in the pool which it sucked in like a waterspout and while the bag’s opening was small, it accommodated whatever it was that lurked in the water, fitting a mass of tentacles into its interior. Yummy could only look on in awe as she held the bag open as the howling vortex within it grew stronger.

Then, from out through a door came the BethLogs creature, still alive after all but also still on fire as it flailed against the wind before being engulfed by the bag. Then Nyarlathotep was the last and he tried desperately to fight back but to no avail as he too was swept into the bag, his arms grasping desperately for anything to hold onto but finding nothing. Then he too was taken into the bag and the light within it went off and the wind dropped immediately.

The people around the stage blinked and their senses returned. They looked around in surprise and bafflement but they were alright and that was what mattered. The authorities arrived only a bit later but were every bit as dumbfounded.

Later, people would remember that there was a show called Party Time but they found it difficult to recall details. Also, the prizes all turned out to be just junk and whatever evil powered and veiled them failed. Apparently, the bag had also sucked out whatever demons possessed them and the “prizes” that were found in the aftermath were immediately committed to a landfill.

Yummy, while frightened during the course of events, put herself back together along with her brothers and life went back to normal for her. She, her brothers and Tim rarely spoke of Party Time since the end of the nightmare and they gradually began to forget about it which was probably all for the good. She never saw Lola Bashang again but hoped she would maybe run into her when she traveled beyond her home city. The bag also disappeared the day after her confrontation with Nyarlathotep and she hoped that Lola Bashang would also help those who were threatened by the forces of darkness.

For even if Evil did exist in the world, Yummy knew that Good, often in the form of wisdom, would always be there to fight it!

THE END

Have a Great Halloween everyone!