The rotting wooden door screeched sharply as I squeezed my way through. The air inside the house was choked with the stench of damp mold, peeling plaster, and something resembling long-rotted flesh. I clicked on my phone’s flashlight, the pale blue beam sweeping across the dark, cluttered living room. There was no one. "I must have misheard..." I reassured myself, thinking back to the agonizing cry for help I had caught while passing by this abandoned suburban house. Just as I turned around to leave, a gaunt, ice-cold hand suddenly clamped down on my wrist. The grip was so violently tight it nearly made me drop my phone. Before me stood an old woman, her sparse grey hair disheveled, her milky, clouded eyes staring straight into mine. Leaning in close to my ear, her breath carrying a bone-chilling cold, she rushed out a trembling whisper: "Run... before he comes back." A Fatal Hesitation My heart hammered wildly against my ribs. Instinct screamed at me to wrench my hand free and run for my life from this freakish place. But morbid curiosity—the very thing that shoves humans into real-life horror movies—held me frozen. "Who is 'he', ma'am? What is happening here?" I asked, keeping my voice as low as possible. The old woman didn't answer. She abruptly let go of my wrist, shrinking back into the darkest corner of the room. Wrapping her arms around her head, her entire body curled up like a cornered animal as she endlessly muttered gibberish under her breath. Thud. Thud. Thud. Heavy footsteps echoed from the wooden staircase leading down to the basement. With every step came the scraping, ear-splitting sound of metal being dragged across the tiled floor. Facing the Darkness Instead of fleeing, I snapped my flashlight off and quickly ducked behind an old, dust-caked altar cabinet. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, the only illumination came from the faint moonlight filtering through a shattered window. Out from the shadows of the basement doorway stepped a towering man. He wore a leather apron stained with dark, dried patches. In his right hand, a rusty wood-splitting axe dragged along the floor. "Old woman... are you hiding someone here again?" his voice was raspy and hollow, sounding like it came through a broken speaker. He stopped dead in the middle of the living room, sniffing the air like a hound picking up the scent of fresh prey. Then, he turned his head to look directly toward the altar cabinet where I was hiding. In that horrific split second, a terrifying realization hit me: The old woman wasn't trying to save me from him. She was the bait used to find me. Over in the corner of the room, a twisted, ecstatic grin began to spread across her face under the pale moonlight. The axe-wielding man's footsteps began heading straight for me.