The Bully Chapter 5

Chapter 5: The Discovery

As the celebration unfolded, Fred’s unease deepened. The atmosphere turned unsettling, and the attendees' reactions spooked him. This was not how he imagined it would go. The way they looked at Joe—their twisted smiles—sent chills down his spine. Something was wrong.

He remembered the original plan, how it was supposed to work, and the bartender’s cryptic words. With resolve, Fred decided to check on the televisions in the rooms, desperate to uncover the truth. He left the banquet hall and headed toward the hotel wing.

The first door he tried was ajar. Cautiously, he stepped inside and was struck by a strange, cloudy haze filling the room. A man sat slumped in front of the television, his face frozen in an expression of rage. Panic surged within Fred as he approached, heart pounding. He reached out, feeling for a pulse—but the man’s body fell lifelessly from the chair.

“No… no, no!” Fred gasped, stumbling back. The sight was horrifying, an ethereal tableau of death wrapped in anger.

Quickly, he darted to the next room, and the scene was the same—a couple lay sprawled at the foot of the bed, faces contorted in perpetual fury, mirroring the lifeless man’s expression. Fear clawed at his gut. He raced through the hall, trying each door, and each revealed the same grim reality: all dead, all with that haunting look of anger frozen on their faces.

As he stood in the last room, he realized he had seen enough to assume that if he checked the remaining rooms for the rest of the people at the event, the results would be the same. Dead bodies. His mind raced as he grappled with a chilling thought: if these bodies were here, who were the people at the reunion?

Fred’s heart pounded as he grasped the implications. They couldn’t be dead and present at the same time unless… no way. Unless they were ghosts.

He fought the urge to recoil as he remembered the strange glances the reunion attendees had given Joe. There was no way he was going back in there, but he had to warn Joe.

"I’ll call him," Fred thought, pulling out his phone, but the screen flickered—no signal. Panic set in as he rushed to the door, but it wouldn’t budge.

Suddenly, the television flickered on, displaying the video they had planned to use. The room began to thicken with the same cloudy mist he had seen earlier. Fred’s instincts screamed at him to escape, but as he turned, one of the bodies stood up, gliding toward the door, blocking his exit. The other reached out, its cold, dead hand gripping his arm like a vise.

They made no sound, but he could feel their anger radiating, sharp and suffocating. The gas from the television filled the air, and the sound of the tape grew louder, invading his mind like a relentless tide.

As his gaze fixed on the screen, Fred felt his will crumble. The whispers of the past flooded back, drowning out his thoughts as he slumped to the floor, the hand around his neck tightening, squeezing the life from him.

From the corner of the room, the bartender hovered above, a sinister grin stretching across his face.

“Here is a message for Joe,” he said, his voice dripping with satisfaction.

Fred’s head slumped forward, eyes fixed and unblinking on the screen. As his final breath left him, darkness closed in for good. He had become another victim in Joe’s revenge.