The Masshole Crossing

The fog clung to Plymouth like a suffocating veil, deadening every sound, swallowing every streetlight. No one with sense ventured out after dark. Everyone knew the stories—not ones about ghosts or werewolves, but about things that didn’t belong in this world. Creatures older than any myth. Things that waited.

Mark was thinking about those stories now as he drove down the snaking backroads of The Masshole Crossing. It was just supposed to be a shortcut. A ten-minute detour, maybe. He gripped the steering wheel tighter, the dashboard clock flicking to 11:58 PM. The town’s warning echoed in his mind: You never stop for anyone on these roads.

The headlights caught movement—something crouched on the side of the road. A woman. No—a thing shaped like a woman. Her hair was drenched, slick like pond algae, clinging to a face marred by scratches, deep gouges carved into her flesh like she’d tried to claw her own skin off. Her eyes reflected the light, glittering like animal eyes in the dark.

His stomach churned, instinct screaming at him to drive away. But Mark slowed down. Against every warning, against every logical thought, he rolled the window down an inch.

“You okay?” His breath clouded in the cold air.

The thing’s head jerked up as if on a string, her joints moving wrong—too fast. The sound of snapping bone echoed as she straightened. She staggered toward the car, dragging one leg behind her, a slick smear of mud and something darker trailing after her. The smell hit him—wet earth mixed with rot, like something freshly dug up.

Before Mark could react, the woman smashed her face against the car window, shattering the glass. Blood and fragments of her teeth scattered across the seat, but she didn’t flinch. She just stared through him, her broken lips curling into a smile far too wide, far too knowing.

Then she grabbed his arm.

Her touch was wrong. It wasn’t cold—it was empty, like touching a vacuum where life should be. His bones vibrated under her grip, a sensation that clawed through muscle and marrow alike. Mark screamed as something inside him snapped—a feeling deeper than pain, as if she were pulling at his very essence.

He wrestled free and slammed the door, peeling out into the mist. In the rearview mirror, he saw her standing in the road, watching him leave. She opened her mouth in a grotesque grin, too large for her face.

And then she waved—as if to say: See you soon.

By the time Mark reached Applegate Estates, his arm was burning, the veins beneath the skin bulging black and writhing, as if something was moving inside them. He stumbled into the house, slamming the door behind him. Tina, groggy from sleep, bolted up from the couch.

“Mark?” Her voice trembled when she saw him. “What’s wrong with your arm?”

He rolled up his sleeve, and they both stared in horror. The scratches had spread like roots under his skin—branching veins of black, pulsing, and alive.

Tina grabbed her phone.

“We need to get you to a hospital.”

“No...” Mark groaned. “It’s... inside me.”

He clutched his head as whispers slithered into his ears—too many voices, each one repeating his name in a chant. His vision blurred, and he saw the woman's reflection flicker in the glass of the TV screen, her lips mouthing: Almost home, Mark.

The next three days were hell. Mark’s fever spiked, and his body began to decay from the inside out. His skin grew mottled and sunken, fingertips blackening and sloughing off like old wax. His teeth ached, and by the second night, they started to loosen. He pulled one out with his fingers and stared at it in disbelief—it came away with the root still attached.

At night, he could hear things outside the house—shuffling feet, low, wet sounds like breathing through mud. Every time he looked toward the windows, he saw shadows slinking across the yard. They weren’t human; they were wrong, with limbs too long and faces too smooth, as if they were only trying to look like people.

Tina tried to call for help, but every phone went dead. The power flickered, the house growing darker with each passing night. By the third day, Mark’s skin had thinned so much that the black veins underneath glistened like oil through damp paper.

And then came the scratching.

It started just after midnight—a slow, deliberate drag of nails along the front door. Skkkrrrch... Skkkkrrrch... Tina peeked through the window, and there she was—the woman from The Masshole Crossing, her tattered dress flapping in the wind, her mouth still twisted into that awful grin. The scratches on her face had deepened, her flesh sloughing off to reveal bone beneath.

And then Tina saw them—the others. They stood in the fog behind her, motionless and waiting. Every single one had Mark’s eyes. Some were missing patches of skin, others dragged limbs like they’d forgotten how to move, but they all wore the same empty grin.

Tina grabbed the shotgun from the basement and threw the door open, her heart pounding. “Leave us alone!” she screamed, firing point-blank into the woman’s chest.

The blast threw her back, but when the smoke cleared, the woman was still standing. She giggled—a rasping, childlike sound—and stepped forward. The fog parted, and Tina saw her true form.

The skin peeled away from her bones like wet bark, revealing not muscle but writhing tendrils of roots and soil. Her empty eye sockets gleamed, and her mouth widened into a gaping maw filled with wriggling things—leeches, worms, and pieces of faces, mouths whispering Mark’s name over and over.

“I told you,” the thing crooned. “I only take what’s already lost.”

Mark staggered into the room, his body sagging, his face grey and lifeless. Tina knew then—he wasn’t Mark anymore. Whatever had taken him was using him as bait.

The woman laughed, a sound like a shovel scraping over stone.

“You can't stop it, Tina. It always needs more.”

Tina didn’t hesitate. She raised the knife and plunged it into Mark’s chest, silencing the thing he’d become. His eyes flickered with a brief moment of recognition—thank you—before the life drained away completely.

The whispers in the room stopped. But only for a moment.

From outside, the fog thickened, and the shadows in the yard began to shift. The scratching at the door started again—this time at every door, every window.

It was never just one.

The house filled with the sound of laughter—high, shrill, and endless. And then the front door slowly creaked open, revealing the night beyond.

And the fog rolled in.