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Chapter 34: The Death of Thomas Miller
The black tide seeped through the cracks of the house, slow and deliberate, like a patient predator savoring the last moments before the kill. The air grew thick, suffocating, pressing against their lungs with an unnatural weight.
Wallace, Vanessa, and Rhodes stood frozen as Thomas Miller flipped through the pages of The Plague of Palatka, his face growing paler with each passage. His fingers trembled as they traced over words that had already come true—every death, every transformation, every horror.
But there was one part left unfinished.
Miller swallowed hard. "I didn’t write the ending. I stopped before I could."
Wallace narrowed his eyes. "Why?"
Miller’s gaze met his. "Because I die here."
The room fell silent.
Vanessa shook her head. "That’s ridiculous. Just because you wrote it—"
The house shuddered violently. The black tide surged against the walls, pulsing, alive. Shadows slithered through the gaps in the boarded windows, whispering in voices they should not have recognized.
Mercer’s voice.
"He wrote us into existence."
Rhodes raised his rifle, but Miller stopped him with a shaking hand. "It won’t matter," he said, his voice hollow. "This story was never mine to control."
The manuscript’s pages fluttered violently, as if caught in a phantom wind. The words began to change, rewriting themselves in real-time. Wallace stepped closer, watching in horror as new sentences carved themselves onto the paper:
"And then Thomas Miller, the man who dreamed of horrors, became one."
Miller stumbled backward, gripping his chest as his veins blackened beneath his skin. His breath came in ragged gasps. "No... no, this isn’t how—"
His body convulsed. His fingers curled inward, the bones snapping audibly as they elongated into something inhuman. His spine arched, his ribs cracking and shifting beneath his skin as his flesh bubbled and stretched.
He let out a strangled scream as his jaw unhinged, stretching far beyond what a human mouth should allow.
The transformation was grotesque, painful beyond words.
Wallace lunged forward. "We can stop this!"
Miller’s eyes—no longer his—snapped toward him. A tear, black as ink, slipped down his cheek. His lips moved, but his voice was no longer his own.
"It’s too late."
And then he collapsed.
His body spasmed once, twice… and then stilled.
The house fell silent.
Vanessa clutched Wallace’s arm, her nails digging into his skin. "Is he...?"
Miller’s body twitched. His fingers curled. His head snapped up.
But it was no longer Thomas Miller.
What had been Miller let out a wet, gurgling laugh. Its skin had turned a deep, shifting black, pulsating with unnatural life. Its bones jutted at odd angles, as though something inside was trying to crawl its way out.
Rhodes took a step back, his grip tightening on his weapon. "Jesus Christ."
Wallace grabbed Vanessa’s hand. "Run."
The thing that had once been Miller grinned, its mouth splitting open far too wide. From its throat, the voices of the infected echoed in unison.
"The story isn’t over."
Then it lunged.
To be continued…