The SCP Experience - The Halloween to End the World (Part 2) | SCP-6531

Episode Date: October 31, 2024

SCP Foundation KETER class object, SCP-6531 This story was derived from https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-6531 and is released under Creative Commons Sharealike 3.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ Want to listen ad-free? Try it FREE for 7 days here: patreon.com/TheSCPExperience Author: Matt D. * * * DISCLAIMER: This episode contains explicit content. Parental guidance is advised for children under the age of 18. Listen at your own discretion. #thescpexperience #scp #scpfoundation #scpencounters #securecontainprotect #scpstories Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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10-2-0-LIN 50-ttour-Gos on $1B1NZZ, depobminimimimmed to $10 $0. Veye, I'm doing in a fashion responsible. The conditions apply. Kaden popped his knuckles absently as he stared out the window.

Maybe not. I'm going to call Abes and see if Mom's there. I said, talking about the local watering hole. I know she's not at work now. It's Saturday. Yeah, okay. Kaden said. Call her.

See if she's sober enough to drive home so we can get out of here. I nodded and pulled my phone out. I called Abes, but no one picked up. It just rang and rang. No one's picking up. Keep trying. I hung up and tried again. Still nothing.

After two more attempts, I tried calling my friend Hank, who lived about a mile away. His phone kept ringing. No one is picking up, I said. Let's check the news, Kaden said, turning the TV on. I ended the call and stood next to Kaden behind the couch. We flipped through the chat. finally landing on a local news report from the nearest city.

We watched for about an hour, walking from the TV to the living room window and back again. But we saw nothing pertaining to our town, other than a short segment about the fire at the Petty House, in which the report said that two bodies were found inside the rubble and the investigation was ongoing. There was nothing about people acting strange, or about the odd clouds, or anything else regarding our town.

regarding our town. Outside, the sky remained dark as afternoon turned to evening. Nothing happened. No cars drove by, no people walked by, and it seemed that even the birds had left, because all was quiet. We debated what to do, but there was never really any other choice than to stay home and wait for mom. We spent the hours in the living room, only going up to our rooms to stuffed backpacks full of things we would need when mom finally came home so we could get gone. We waited, and our mom never came home. I can't just stay here and do nothing anymore, I said, pacing behind the couch. The 6 o'clock news was on, but once again, there was nothing about our town.

Outside, what little sunlight there had been was quickly retreating as night fell. What do you want to do? Kaden asked. Remote in one hand as he slumped on the couch. We need to find mom, I said. She's never gone for this long. Caden scoffed. Okay, I amended.

Almost never. Maybe she got arrested. That would be a minor worry, I said. Too bad the police station still isn't picking up their phone. Man, Kaden said, raising his head and looking out the window. I don't want to go back out there. Me neither, I said. But I think we have to.

We should try Abe's first. I can't believe she still goes to that place. You can see the factory right across the street. I think that's why she goes there, I said. I think she's punishing herself, drinking there right across from the factory. My friend Serena's big brother said, he sees her there sometimes. And she just sits alone, staring out at the factory while slamming drinks. That's probably the most depressing thing I've ever heard, Caden said.

I took a deep breath. Abes is barely a mile from here. If we run, we can be there in ten minutes. Ten minutes? Kaden said. You're not that slow, are you? I smiled. I'm not the track star here.

Former track star, Kaden said. He sighed, then got up and shut the TV off. Okay, let's go. But I'm not leaving without a weapon of some kind. Three minutes later, We were ready to go. Backpacks and warm clothes on, weapons in hand. Caden had a wooden baseball bat, and I had a hockey stick.

As we approached the front door, I glanced out the window. Wait, I said. Someone's out there. Maybe it's a trick-or-treater, Kaden said hopefully. We both crowded the window and peered out, seeing someone walking past in the middle of the street. Is that? Kaden started. I nodded.

I think so. He's wearing one of the Nosferatu masks from the factory. The guy in the street looked like he was straight out of the 1922 film. He had the mask on. It had been one of the most popular offerings from the factory, along with the black suit and the long, pointy fingers. He crept along, seeming almost to float. That's creepy, Kaden said.

I swallowed. It's now or never. Let's go. Once the creepy guy was out of sight, we moved outside into the preternatural stillness of the night. But as soon as we got to the edge of the yard and turned left on the sidewalk,

we saw two other figures on the street ahead, walking toward us. My brother yanked my arm and pulled me back behind an evergreen bush at the edge of our yard. Something weird is going on, I said. Oh shit! Caden exclaimed in a harsh whisper. No, I mean something to do with those masks, you said we're still at the factory.

We sat behind the bush, listening to the steady scrape and crunch of large boots on the street. Soon, the two figures came abreast of us, and I could see clearly what they were wearing. The slasher mask was another offering from the Lassarovich Warables Factory. It featured a half-broken skeleton mask over a gruesomely deformed face. It was all one thing, a rubber mask you could pull on over your entire head. The two slasher's in the street looked identical. They wore the same ragged and bloodstained scrubs, the same boots, and they were exactly the same height. My eyes were stuck on the weapons they carried, identical machetes that gleamed in the weak streetlights.

As we watched from our hiding spot, one of them broke off and went across the street to the Moor's house while the other continued on. The one at the Moors' house rang the doorbell. A moment later, Mr. Morse opened the door. Without a word, he let the slasher in and then shut the door behind him. Caden and I looked at each other, puzzled. Then the screaming started. I thought about the three little Morse children, and before I knew it, I was running across the street.

I could hear Caden following behind me. I expected him to try and stop me, but he didn't. As I reached the front window and peered into the house, I saw Mrs. Morse flying at me. I ducked, and the window shattered as Mrs. Morse crashed through it, hitting the ground at my brother's feet. But it wasn't Mrs. Morse. Not all of her anyway. She'd been cut in half, and only her top half had been thrown out the window. I stared down at her, fear turning my limbs to concrete and freezing my lungs.

She was still alive. She dragged herself toward my brother. intestines spooling out behind her. She reached up and grabbed Caden's leg, opening her mouth to say something. But her eyes rolled into her head, and she collapsed before she could get the words out. My head shifted jerkily on creaking vertebrae back toward the window.

I looked inside and saw Mr. Moore standing blankly by while the slasher grabbed one of the deathly still children that stood around the living room. As soon as the slasher grabbed the child, The child, a 14-year-old named Josiah, the kid snapped out of whatever trance had befallen everyone in town. He started screaming, and his screams only increased when the slasher plunged his knife into the kid's guts. The sickening violence broke my paralysis, and I turned to run into the house. But Caden caught my arm.

He's killing them! I screamed, trying to yank away. Look, Caden said. Just look! He was pointing at the street with his baseball. all bad. And when I looked that way, I knew he was right to stop me. The street was filled with Nosferatu, slashers, walking skeletons, zombies, werewolves, and a half dozen other creatures. They were all familiar to me because they had all been designed by Lasarevich wearables.

The factory, my brother said. They're coming for the factory. If we want to stop this, we need to get there. I knew he was right. But the screams from inside the Moors House, chilled me to my core. Remember backyard tag? Caden asked. Of course, I said, knowing exactly what he meant. We looked at each other

and then darted toward the Morse's backyard. When we were kids, we played tag all over the neighborhood, jumping fences and hiding in people's yards, sometimes chasing each other across the entire neighborhood only through backyards. We burst through the side gate and into the backyard. Then we ran to the side fence,

fence and started toward the factory. Holy shit, man, Caden said as we crouched in a backyard, peering over the wood slat fence at the factory across the street. It was surrounded by a chain-link fence, but there were several holes in it, through which dozens of monsters streamed. They came out of the factory in groups without any rhyme or reason. They didn't emerge continuously. There were irregular breaks that had ranged from a few seconds to a few minutes.

Granted, we'd only been watching for about ten minutes while we tried to figure out what to do. Whatever Charlene did to us back at home has made us immune from the trance everyone's in, I said. But I doubt it'll make us immune from fangs or machete blades or claws. That's why we need to think about this. We need to be smart. Get in there and see what's causing all this. There's got to be something, some way to stop it.

What if there's not? I asked. Caden looked at me. There's got to be. Maybe Charlene and her sister knew something like this was coming, I said. Maybe they were here to try and stop it. Maybe that's why they were killed. Doesn't matter, Caden said.

We're the only ones that can stop it now. Yeah, unless we can't, I thought. I say we just take the direct route, Caden said. Wait until there's a break, and then go straight through the nearest door. He pointed at a roll-up door we can. could see from where we were. It was one of three in the loading dock area where trucks would pull up to be loaded, but the door in question had been broken open, presumably by the creatures. I exhaled. A few slasherers came out, followed by a couple of Nospharattos. We waited until

they were past us as we stared at the door. No more creatures had come out, so it seemed like our best chance. Now, Caden said, tossing his bat over the fence and then climbing. after it. I threw my hockey stick over and then followed after my big brother. But as soon as I landed on the sidewalk, I saw two zombies come out the door. Damn, Caden said, then paused. I bet we can take him. Before waiting for confirmation, he darted ahead, baseball bat in hand. I just stood next to my hockey stick and watched as Caden ducked through the hole in the chain link fence. He ran toward the zombies, but as he closed on them, he looked back. He looked back. and saw that I wasn't with him.

The zombies lurched at Caden. He whipped the bat at one of them, knocking it back. But the other one chomped on his arm, teeth, slicing through clothing and into flesh as that they were made of razor blades. Frid breath filled my lungs as I inhaled sharply, wondering what the hell I was doing. Getting your brother killed, a voice in my head said. It was my dad's voice, and it wasn't like I had imagined him talking in my head.

This was like Dad was standing next to me and telling me to snap out of it. I picked up my stick and darted forward, ducking through the fence. The zombie tore a chunk of flesh away from my brother's arm, and the other one was getting up to join the fun. Caden screamed as he tried to shove the chomper off him. I ran up and took a savage swing at the second zombie, breaking the blade off on its head before it could get up. Without thinking, I slammed the shaft into its skull.

Blood spewed up, and the zombie went still. I whirled back around and ran at the one with a mouth full of my brother's flesh. I crashed into it like a lineman into a running back. We hit the parking lot asphalt, and I quickly rolled away so I wouldn't get bit. By the time I got back to my feet, my brother was up again. He slammed his bat into the zombie's head, cracking its skull open. The zombie stilled. Are you okay? I asked.

Kaden glared at me. Let's go. We don't have time. He turned and ran toward the damaged roll-up door. This time, I followed close. Without hesitation, Caden climbed up onto the loading dock and slipped through the door. I did the same, moving through directly behind him. I was so close, I ran into him when he stopped just inside the door. Oh, shit!

Caden said. A semicircle of creatures stood around us. They'd been waiting. There were slapsed. with all two real blades, Nosferatu's with sharp teeth and nails, werewolves with fangs and bulging muscles, and even ghosts that floated around,

dripping, foul-smelling ectoplasm onto the floor of the wide-open factory. But my eyes caught on something behind them, or someone. At the other end of the factory floor, there was a staircase leading up to the offices where my dad had worked. What I was interested in at the moment was the figure, standing halfway up those stairs, looking right at me, and pointing down. Dad? I said, my surprise at seeing him, overwhelming the danger that lurked on three sides.

What? Caden said, voice low. I pointed with my broken hockey stick. It's Dad! Caden looked where I was pointing. His face went ashy, and his eyes widened to saucers. Holy! Then the creatures attacked.

They swarmed. toward us, blades raised, fangs bared, and claws proffered. I knew there would be no retreat for me, not with Dad standing there in the stairs, watching. Even then, I knew why he wasn't helping us fight the beasts. Deep down, I knew why. I had known it all along. Kaden didn't hesitate either. He didn't even flinch toward the exit behind us. Instead, we both rushed into the onslaught, certain that we were on the right track. After all, Dad was there for a reason, pointing down with one hand. He was helping in the only way he could.

And as I rushed forward, I heard my father's voice as if he was standing right next to me. I was sure Caden heard it too. It was something he'd told us, after Caden and I came home beaten and bruised when we were young. Caden had been in eighth grade, and I'd been in sixth. After a particularly heated football game with some neighborhood kids, in which some things had been said by both sides, we'd been cornered and beaten by six kids from the other team. Even then, Kaden and I had been creative in our insults and name-calling.

Apparently, we'd hit a nerve with a ninth grader from the other team, and his little followers were all too happy to dole out of beating. We'd been beaten pretty good, and while Mom freaked out and fussed over us, Dad just watched and waited with a knowing look in his eyes. When we were all cleaned up, Dad called us out to the backyard and sat us down on the stoop. You'll encounter people who don't want to fight fair all your life, he'd said. So you need to have a plan for dealing with them.

Now, as I heard the words he spoke again, my feet were moving, and Caden was just to my left, rushing forward as well. If you're surrounded, you pick the biggest guy out, and you rush him and you take him down as hard as you can. Then you both run. If both of you can't run, you both stay and fight. You fight together, and you win or lose together, get me. The biggest guy right now is a hulking werewolf straight ahead, a good seven feet tall with huge arms and tree trunk legs. He crouched on those muscular legs as Caden and I closed on him.

Hi! Caden shouted. Yeah. I said, gripping my hockey stick in both hands like a spear. I ducked under a machete blade and cracked a zombie in the head just before we reached the werewolf. Then I made my move, throwing myself off the ground and going high, just like Caden said I should.

Meanwhile, my brother acted like he was going for the thing's head, but at the last moment he changed the trajectory of his baseball bat and sent the wooden implement smashing between the werewolf's legs. At the same instant, I jammed the jagged hockey stick under its chin. As the werewolf crashed to the floor, it gripped my arm with its left paw, slashing my shoulder to ribbons. But the impact with the floor helped me jam the hockey stick farther into its throat, causing it to release my arm a moment later. I rolled off the thing, almost immediately feeling Caden pull me up.

The door, I said, seeing the metal door under the stairs where Dad had been standing. I see it. Caden said as we ran toward it. We'd both gotten to know the factory fairly well in the years. dad worked for the company, but the basement had always been off limits. Until now, Caden pulled the door open and shoved me through. Before he slammed the door shut, I saw the small army of creatures rushing after us. He shut the door and locked the knob, but there was no deadbolt. The creature smashed into the other side, sounding like a car crash. It's not going to hold for long.

That's how we can end this. I said, turning and moving down the stairs to the basement. I heard Caden coming behind me. The gashes in my shoulder burned, and blood soaked into my clothes, but I forced myself to ignore the pain. I looked back, thankful that Caden still held his baseball bat, because I'd left my hockey stick in the werewolf's throat. We rushed through the doorway at the bottom of the stairwell, and came to an abrupt hall as we saw the horror that awaited us.

A massive throne made of gnarled, thorny roots, sat in the center of the otherwise empty basement. The roots seemed to have grown through the concrete, which was broken underneath. In the throne sat a gruesome, half-formed beast, pulled from the nightmares of a feverish child. The strange beast sat in the chair, but only half of its skeleton had flesh on it. Its face was complete, a horrific mask of distorted features that seemed to defy the rules of reality. I saw four eye sockets, each, of a different size. Thankfully, none of the eyes were open. Its torso was mostly formed, but I could see bloated, black organs through irregular holes that seemed to be closing even

as we watched. Its arms only had skin and muscle on half of them. From the elbows down, there were only faint traces of connective tissue, same with the legs from the knees down. The skeleton, although somewhat humanoid, had extra bones and strange protrusions like some spikes at odd intervals. Caden and I stared at the creature, closing in haltingly. As we got closer, I could see that the thing was changing. Muscles were forming, skin creeping along, connective tissue slithering like snakes around otherwise bare bones.

The murders, Dad said, causing both of us to look around for him. Where are you? Caden asked. It grows stronger with each kill out in the town. Dad said from everywhere and nowhere. You must destroy it. Something caught my eye on the creature, and I moved even closer, looking at its left cheek, where a scar ran down a piece of dark skin there.

As I came within spitting distance of the thing, I saw that its face, its mask, was made of different pieces of sewn-together skin. My throat constricted as I studied that scar on the creature's face, the scar on that one patch of skin. It was a scar I'd seen every day of my life up until my dad's disappearance six months ago. A scar he'd gotten when he was a young man working construction before he met mom. They killed you, I said, realizing what I'd known to some extent all along. And they used your skin.

Jesus! Caden said next to me. Then, with the suddenness of a bolt of lightning to the chest, all four of the creature's eyes opened. It reached out and smacked Caden hard across the face. Although the impact shattered its hand, it was hard enough to send my brother crashing into me. We both went down next to the throne, Caden landing on top of me.

Get up! I shouted, seeing the creature toss itself onto the floor at our feet. It started crawling toward us, those bones that were not connected well enough falling away. Since the moment we'd come into the basement, the banging from the door upstairs had been a kind of, constant soundtrack. Now, that soundtrack had morphed into another one, one of footsteps rushing down the stairs. The creatures had broken through.

Get off! I said, pushing at my brother, realizing he was limp. The baseball bat fell out of his hands and onto the hard concrete floor, starting to roll away. I got my arm out and stopped it before he could roll out of reach. I felt my legs pressed down as weight settled on them. I shifted and looked down, seeing the beast crawling toward me, dragging itself forward on arms that ended at the elbows where yellowed, craggy bones jutted from the still-forming flesh. Pinned awkwardly under my brother, I had little room to move. And what little I had was quickly dwindling as the beast crawled farther up the jumble of my brother and I. I got the baseball bat up and jabbed it at the creature's face.

It's grotesque mouth hinged open, rows of jagged teeth clamping on the tip of the bat and crunching down. The wood splintered, and on instinct, I pulled the bat back, coming away with a shaft with a jagged tip. The beast crunched on the wood in its mouth, staring with those four irregular eyes as it tried to pin me further. Footsteps rushed toward us as the other creatures came near, ready and eager to rip us to pieces. Suddenly, my brother stiffened, and I heard him gasp as though waking from a nightmare. Get it off! I screamed, but I knew there was of time. Kaden looked at the approaching horde and then back at the beast, whose mouth was once again falling open as it neared Kaden's face. My brother's hands shot up, and he grabbed the creature's

horrid head with one hand under the chin, and the other on its bald, stitched together head. He didn't have to say anything. I knew what to do. I stabbed the bat forward, toward the biggest of the yellow-red eyes. This time, with Kaden holding its head, it couldn't dodge the strike. The jagged wood sank deep into its eye socket. I shoved it deeper. The beast spasmed. With my heel, I jammed it even farther into the beast's skull. The horde was closing in.

Caden took his hand off the beast's jaw and punched the base of the bat. The other three eyes fell closed, and the rushing footsteps suddenly stopped. I looked over at where the horde had been. It was gone. Disappeared. My brother and I lay under the beast for a few long moments, breathing heavily. Finally, Caden shoved the beast off, got up, and then helped me up. Dad?

I said, looking around the dark space. Dad, are you still here? Caden squeezed my uninjured arm. He's gone. We stood and looked down at the beast's face, or rather, one swath of the skin on the beast's face. It was all we had left of our father. We found our mother at Abe's bar, surrounded by a horrific and gory tableau. There were over a dozen people in the bar, and only half of them were still alive. There were dead bodies lying on the floor near our stunned mother, hacked,

or bitten, or ripped apart. Those still alive were coming slowly out of a daze now that the spell was broken. We took her out of the bar where we embraced tearily. Once she was coherent, and after she fussed over our injuries, we told her what we'd found in the factory. She shook her head. I knew those bastards had something to do with it. I just couldn't prove it. The owners, I asked. That's right, she said. Shane Lortho and Darius MacCallum. I'm sure this was their doing. this whole thing. I'm sure they're packing up and leaving now that their little demon won't be coming to life. You don't sound so surprised, Kaden said.

Mom took her hands and looked at us. Boys, I'm so sorry, but I need to tell you something. I don't care what they do to me at this point. They can wipe all our memories if they feel the need, but I have to tell you. Okay, I said, feeling queasy. What? Your father didn't just work for the Lasarevich wearables. He worked for something called the SEP Foundation.

What's that? I asked. And why the hell didn't they know about this whole thing? Gaden said. That's a good question, Mom said. There are some forces here working against the foundation, I think. But I have an idea about how to get to the bottom of this. What's that? We go find the owners of Laszarevich wearables.

and ask them a few questions. How will we find them? I asked. Mom smiled. Your dad wasn't the only one who worked for the foundation. SCP 6531 is a manufacturing center previously operated by Lasarevich Wearables, a small clothing distributor specializing in horror-themed costumes and masks. The factory's anomalous quality manifests annually

on the night of October 31st, with the first instance recorded by local officials in 2017. Following sundown on October 31st, groups of entities begin to emerge at random intervals from one of SCP-6531's three entrances. The appearances and capabilities of instances vary, but seem to be restricted to representations of costumes previously sold by Lasarevich wearables.

These entities will attempt to murder everyone in the vicinity in an effort to summon a demon on factory property. If the demon is successfully summoned, it could result in an XK class end-of-the-world scenario. Containment of the utmost importance, and testing is ongoing.