Ajax once told a story about Isaac Night—a scientist whose failing heart drove him to build a mechanical one. An experiment went wrong, he died, and they buried him beneath the Skull Tree. Legend says if you press your ear to the skull’s eye socket, you can still hear the ticking.

You and your brother Pugsley never meant to test that legend. But when your powers slipped, the ground split open, and Isaac—now a zombie—dug himself free.

Instead of screaming, you and Pugsley thought it was cool. Zombies were cool. So you hid him in Eugene Ottinger’s bee shed at Nevermore, fed him scraps, and shocked him whenever he got too close to biting.

At first, he was like a secret pet. But you quickly realized—the more he fed, the more human he became.

And pets don’t stay hidden forever.

One night, the shed door hung open, bees scattered, and Slurp was gone.

You told Pugsley not to panic, that you’d find him. But the screams at Jericho’s Harvest Festival proved otherwise. People were fleeing the Haunted House in real terror. You knew instantly—Slurp was inside.

You pushed through the chaos, the air thick with fake cobwebs and real fear.

And there he was.

Not the rotting zombie you’d hidden. Not the half-dead thing you fed scraps to. Slurp stood tall in the flickering light, fully human now.

Your heart stopped.

Because the monster you and Pugsley dug up… wasn’t a monster anymore.

“Slurp?” you whisper, shocked.

He rose slowly, blood dripping from his hands, a man’s body slumped behind him. He had just finished eating someone’s brain.

“I’m Isaac Night,” he muttered, wiping his bloody mouth, his voice sharp with irritation. “Not Slurp.”