Monster House: Chapter 5

Welcome back to The Midpoint, my serial fiction section here on Substack! Thank you so much to my lovely subscribers. If you’re new, and it’s okay if you are, I started writing a story about a house of monstrous girls living together in a retrofitted manor in the middle of nowhere, New Hampshire. It’s called Monster House. This is how it works:

Chapters are 3-5k long.

Genre: bubblegum horrormance? Is that a genre? Surely it has to be. Blood, sex, magic, but with a pink filter.

There are five monster girls. Each one gets a novella. Part I will be written in sections for this newsletter. Unsure about the rest and not making any decisions on it since this is really an outlet for me to try a bonkers story with the hopes there are others who would be drawn to the same summoning circle.

Part I - The Vampire « « « You are here « « «

Part II - The Mermaid

Part III - The Werewolf

Part IV - The Succubus

Part V - The Gorgon

I’m going to post a chapter every few weeks, in between other fiction.

As you read, keep in mind this is very lightly edited and proofread. There’s something about this font that I can’t pick up typos after several reads.

Tell your friends! Tell your mom—but only if she’s into (sometimes weird) monster romance.

Don’t be shy with the comments. It won’t hurt my feelings, and I’d love constructive feedback on what you’d love to see from the characters. Like, choose-your-own adventure, though really more of a “suggest”-your-own adventure.

I’m writing this as Zoey Castile.

Happy reading. If you’re having fun, please share! If you haven’t started, well this is your invitation to Foxwood Manor.

What’s Monster House about?

Welcome to Foxwood Manor, a home built in the 19th century to one of the richest families in the northeast. After the bloody scandal that befell the original owners, it fell into the hands of Athena Hall, a real estate agent—and immortal Gorgon. She repaired the house and accrued four roommates over the years. Each girl is a monster. A Miami vampire frozen at the edge before turning twenty-one. A cursed mermaid who loves to cook. A Brooklyn werewolf living her cottage-core(gore?) dreams. A succubus trying to get her groove back. And a glamorous Gorgon waiting for her past to come and get its revenge.

They say good fences make good neighbors. Every month, three of the girls go on a trip called the Fever Hunt. They stock up on supplies, run and swim in the wild, and then return to the safety of the manor. But this trip brings a surprise—their meticulously planned hunt is interrupted by a blizzard, and a bachelor party stranded on their hillside road.

Karli Perreira has been a vampire for thirty-one years, and a vegetarian vampire for twenty-five of them. The sordid details of those six years are not important. Turned in the wild and wet 90s, she’s perpetually a day short of twenty-one. Like, total bummer. She’s made the most of it by living in a decked-out manor with her monstrous besties. Karli’s always been afraid of losing control again. Her recent cravings and the group of handsome strangers who seek shelter from the storm is about to test that self-control. Especially from the brooding Ryder Vega, a budding singer and disarming flirt with a secret of his own.

As the blizzard snows them in, and delays their leaving, the monster girls of Foxwood Manor struggle to reign in their hunger. For Karli, it’s been so long since she’s fed on a human, but she’s on the brink of breaking every rule that keeps them safe. After Ryder reveals that he’s one of four initiates on the final trial to ascent to a cult of monster hunters. Face to face with a man she wants to kiss or kill, she’s forced to ask herself—who is really the hunter, and who is the prey?

PROLOGUE: In which we learn the bloody history of Foxwood Manor

CHAPTER 1: In which we meet the monster girls getting ready for a hunt 🌶️

CHAPTER 2: In which a group of very handsome strangers seek shelter from the snowstorm.

CHAPTER 3: In which playful drinking games take a terrible, violent turn … 🔪🥃

CHAPTER 4: In which Karli’s murderous past comes back to bite her … literally 🌶️ 💥🩸

CHAPTER 5: In which there’s only one panic room . . . 🩸🩸

Ryder tries to wriggle free beneath me. I can feel my throat constrict as I get a whiff of his heady earthy scent. I’m going to bite him. I want to bite him. An ungodly growl claws from my throat as the blood lust intensifies and I press my fangs along his throat, the vein pulsing against my lip.

Karli.”

The way he says my name snaps me out of the spell cold, even if it does nothing to alleviate my thirst. I roll off Ryder and scramble back until my shoulders his metal. He dives under my bed. My head pulses and my vision is spangled with auras. When he finds what he’s looking for he doesn’t hesitate. And I’m not afraid, though I maybe should be. Alone, locked in a room for the next 16 hours with a man who came here with the intention to kill me, all because he is the bastard kid of the worst man I’ve ever known. When Ryder brandishes his stake, I still am not afraid. We lock eyes. His are black pools; I feel magnetized toward him even as the serpents around his bicep solidify, shimmering oil-slick scales slither toward me. The fangs drip with venom and the fear finally reaches me. I raise my fists to protect myself against the enchanted creature. Perhaps after everything I did, I do deserve this. The snakes moves faster than I have strength with in, but the sting never comes. I hear a hiss, a cry, something thick and slick that ruptures. A deep grunt. A sound like the time my mother stuck a knife through a pork loin. My whole body shudders as I lower my hands.

Ryder sinks back on his knees, wiping away sweat and inky blood that drips from the tip of his stake. “How do you feel?”

I let my arms go slack at my sides. You know that feeling you get when your foot falls asleep? That’s what my entire body feels like. Cramps size my abdomen, squeezing, releasing, twisting. “Everything hurts. But I don’t want to rip your throat out anymore. Though, I’d settle for a slap.”

His face is incredulous but slowly melts into a smile. He shakes his head and grits out a pronounced, “You.”

I shut my eyes and take a moment to let the numb, buzzing sensation to pass. My throat aches, as do my gums. Even though I drank from him, I don’t feel feral. Not the way I used to be. The only thing that lingers is Ryder’s aftertaste, iron on my tongue. I sit up to try to thank him. He destroyed the spell that had been meant to kill me so that he could rip out my fangs as a prize. I cannot forget that’s the kind of man he is.

Read more

2 likes ·   •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on October 12, 2025 22:40
No comments have been added yet.