The basement of Number 5 Bittersweet Court was not a storage space. It was a stomach.
The walls were lined with black acoustic foam, absorbing the sound of the four women’s ragged breathing. The air was stagnant, recycled, and smelled of ozone and old paper. In the center of the room, bathed in the cone of light from Maya’s flashlight, sat the desk.
It was an antique, heavy oak, completely out of place in the modern, sterile bunker. On it sat the microphone—a sleek, professional Neumann that looked like a robotic insect—and a stack of paper.
Maya reached for the paper. Her hand shook so violently that the beam of her flashlight danced across the page, making the words jump.
THE GABLES GHOST SEASON FINALE: THE PURGE DRAFT 4
“Draft four,” Chloe whispered, her voice sounding dead in the soundproofed room. “He rewrote it.”
“Don’t touch it,” Elena warned, but her voice lacked its usual authority. She was staring at the wall behind the desk, where dozens of photos were taped up. Photos of Elena sleeping. Photos of Sarah crying in her car. Photos of Maya’s son, Leo, playing in the yard. “He’s been watching us for years. This isn’t just a podcast. It’s an archive.”
Maya ignored the photos. She flipped the title page.
The script wasn’t written in the past tense. It wasn’t a narration of what had happened. It was a screenplay.
EXT. CUL-DE-SAC - NIGHT
The storm has cut the power. The Gables is plunged into darkness. The perfect white fences are invisible. The only light comes from the FLAMES rising from Number 4.
Maya felt a cold hand squeeze her heart. Number 4. Her house.
INT. SUNROOM - NIGHT
MAYA LIN-BAKER sits in the center of the glass room. She is tied to the rattan chair. The smell of GASOLINE is overpowering.
MAYA (Weeping) I did it. I brought the darkness here. I dug up the bones, and now I have to pay the debt.
THE NARRATOR stands in the shadows, holding a lighter. He is the Judge. He is the Jury.
“He’s going to frame me,” Maya breathed, the realization hitting her like a physical blow. She passed the page to Sarah. “Look at this. It’s a confession. He writes a scene where I admit to ruining the neighborhood, to ‘bringing the darkness,’ and then…”
Sarah read the next line, her face draining of color.
ACTION: The Narrator drops the lighter. The gasoline catches. The fire spreads instantly, consuming the lies. The glass walls reflect the inferno, turning the sunroom into a kiln.
“He’s going to burn you alive,” Sarah whispered. “Tonight. He’s going to make it look like a murder-suicide. Like you snapped.”
“Not just me,” Maya said, flipping to page ten.
EXT. GAZEBO - NIGHT
SARAH VANCE, CHLOE VANCE, and ELENA RUSSO stand watching the fire. They do not call for help. They know this is justice. They know their secrets die with Maya.
“He writes you as accomplices,” Maya said, looking at her friends. “He destroys my life, kills me, and leaves you three with the guilt. He keeps you silent forever because ‘you watched.’”
“It’s the same pattern,” Elena realized. “Just like 1994. He creates a circle of complicity. He makes sure no one can talk.”
Chloe grabbed the script, her eyes scanning the pages frantically. “When? When does this happen?”
Maya pointed to the header on page one.
RECORDING DATE: OCTOBER 31. MIDNIGHT.
“Halloween,” Chloe said. “That’s… that’s next week.”
“No,” Maya said. She pointed to the digital clock on the recording console next to the microphone. The red numbers glowed in the dark.
11:42 PM
“Look at the calendar on the wall,” Maya said.
The calendar was a promotional one from GreenView Landscaping. The date October 31st was circled in red marker. But today wasn’t Halloween. Today was the 24th.
“He moved the schedule up,” Maya said. “Because we found the receiver. Because we got too close. He’s not waiting for Halloween. He’s doing it tonight. The ‘Midnight’ timestamp isn’t a date. It’s a deadline.”
“Eighteen minutes,” Elena said, checking her watch. “We have eighteen minutes before the finale starts.”
“We have to leave,” Sarah said, backing away from the desk. “We have to get out of here and call the police. Screw the secrets. He’s going to kill Maya.”
“Wait,” Maya said. She was reading the last page of the script. Her eyes widened.
“What?” Chloe asked.
“The script…” Maya’s voice trembled. “It changed.”
“What do you mean?”
“The font,” Maya said. “The first twenty pages are Courier New. Standard screenplay format. But the last page… it’s different. It looks like it was typed on a typewriter. Recently.”
She held the paper up to the flashlight. The ink was fresh. Smudged.
SCENE 42: THE BASEMENT
INT. STUDIO - NIGHT
The four women stand in the dark. They think they are the hunters. They think they have found the monster’s lair. They do not realize that the monster invited them in.
MAYA holds the script. She reads these words. She realizes, too late, that the door at the top of the stairs was left unlocked for a reason.
The silence in the basement became absolute. The hum of the servers seemed to stop. The air grew heavy, pressing against their eardrums.
“He knew,” Maya whispered. “He knew we were coming tonight. Chloe’s key app… he let it work.”
She read the final line of the page.
SOUND EFFECT: HEAVY FOOTSTEPS OVERHEAD.
Thump.
The sound came from the ceiling directly above them. It was heavy. Deliberate. The sound of a boot heel striking a hardwood floor.
Thump. Thump.
Chloe screamed, clutching her mouth to stifle the sound.
“He’s here,” Sarah hissed.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
The footsteps were moving. They were walking from the kitchen area above toward the hallway. Toward the basement door.
“The door,” Elena said. “We didn’t lock it behind us.”
Maya dropped the script. The pages scattered across the floor like dead leaves.
“Run,” Maya said.
They scrambled toward the stairs. The wooden steps were narrow, steep, leading up to the door they had entered through.
Maya hit the stairs first. She took them two at a time, her flashlight beam bouncing wildly against the doorframe at the top. She reached for the handle.
She turned it.
It didn’t move.
“It’s locked,” she gasped, rattling the knob. “He locked it from the outside.”
“Kick it!” Elena shouted from the bottom of the stairs.
Maya threw her shoulder against the wood. It was solid core. Reinforced. It didn’t budge.
From the other side of the door, a sound clicked. Mechanical. Precise.
Click.
Then, a voice. Not the gravelly narrator voice. Not the modulated distortion. A human voice, muffled by the wood, but terrifyingly calm.
“Quiet on set,” the voice said.
Then came the sound of a liquid being poured. Glug. Glug. Glug.
The smell seeped under the door almost instantly. Sharp. Pungent. Chemical.
Gasoline.
“He’s pouring it on the door,” Maya screamed, backing down the stairs. “He’s sealing us in!”
“Is there another exit?” Chloe cried, spinning around in the basement. “A window? A bulkhead?”
“It’s a basement,” Elena said, scanning the room. “The windows are glass block. We can’t break them without a sledgehammer.”
“The script said the fire starts in the corner,” Maya said, her mind racing through the pages she had just read. “He wrote the fire starting in the corner of the sunroom. But if he changed the ending…”
She looked at the corner of the basement. Behind the server rack.
A small red light blinked on a device taped to the wall. A timer.
Connected to a jerry can.
“Oh god,” Sarah whispered.
The footsteps above stopped.
Then, the distinct, scratchy sound of a match being struck against a box.
Ffffft.
“Get back!” Maya yelled, tackling Sarah and Chloe to the floor behind the heavy oak desk.
Above them, the woosh of ignition roared like a jet engine. The heat bloomed instantly against the ceiling.
But it wasn’t just upstairs.
In the corner of the basement, the timer on the jerry can hit zero.
A spark popped.
The gasoline fumes in the air ignited.
A wall of fire erupted along the back of the studio, casting long, dancing shadows against the photos of their children. The face of Leo in the photograph seemed to smile as the flames curled the paper, turning his image into ash.
They were trapped in a burning box, and the script said nobody made it out alive.