Silver Grove wasn't always quiet. Back in the day, you'd hear screen doors slamming, kids racing bikes down Maple Street, Old Man Henderson griping about his prize roses. Then came that sweltering August night in '89. By sunrise, seventeen people were dead in the Butcher's Block Diner—not just dead, arranged. Sheriff found old Mrs. Peabody propped up in the jukebox, quarter still in her stiff hand. They never caught who did it, but folks started talking about shadows moving wrong in the alley behind the post office. Whispers curled through town like poison ivy: Mr. Buzzkill did it. He’s still here.
Twenty-three years later, the diner’s just a crumbling husk with “DANGER: CONDEMNED” slapped across boarded windows. Teenagers dare each other to lick the rusty door handle where the bloodstains never quite scrubbed out. That’s where Jenna Parker’s crew showed up tonight—Liam with his dad’s smuggled whiskey, hotboxing the car; Maya scrolling TikTok through her fake ID she won’t need out here; Tyler blasting death metal to drown out the crunch of leaves under their Nikes. They’re laughing too loud, shoving each other toward the busted door. “Buncha boomer ghost stories,” Tyler sneers, kicking rot-soft wood until it splinters. “Buzzkill my a—”
The music dies first. Not just the phone speakers—the crickets, the wind, the everything. There’s a wet click behind them, like scissors snapping shut. When they turn, the man under the flickering streetlight isn’t holding scissors. He’s holding hedge clippers, blade-jaws caked in things that aren’t rust. His suit? Burnt funeral-black. His face? Wrong. Not mangled, just…unmade, like God rage-quit halfway through. Maya freezes mid-snort-laugh. Jenna whispers, very small, “Mr…Buzzkill?”
He tilts his head—bones creak like a house settling—and smiles with every tooth he’s ever collected. The clippers snick open.
“Party’s over, kids.”
