THE STENCH OF BUTTER
THE POPCORN MAN
CHAPTER ONE: THE STENCH OF BUTTER
The town of Millwood had one rule: Never eat popcorn after dark.
Nobody explained why. Nobody dared to question it. They just knew. Every house locked their doors before sundown, windows shut tight, lights dimmed. The air smelled of stale butter and rotting sugar.
Emily didn’t believe in small-town legends. She was eighteen, a skeptic, an outsider. When her family moved into the old Parker house on the edge of town, she rolled her eyes at the whispered warnings from her new classmates.
“Popcorn Man comes for those who disobey.”
“He smells you first… through the butter.”
“If you hear the crunch, it’s already too late.”
Emily thought it was all bullshit.
Until the night she made a deadly mistake.
It started as a dare. Her younger brother, Jake, laughed as he tossed a bag of buttery popcorn into the microwave. “What’s the worst that can happen?” he joked.
Emily smirked. “Maybe the Popcorn Man will show up and tell us to floss.”
The microwave beeped. The scent of warm butter filled the house.
And outside, something moved.
A faint rustling. A slow, deliberate dragging sound across their driveway.
Emily felt it first—the heaviness in the air. Like the walls were closing in, like something was watching.
Then came the first crunch.
It wasn’t the sound of Jake chewing. It wasn’t the popcorn settling in the bowl.
It was outside. On the porch.
Crunch.
Jake froze. “Did you hear that?”
Emily swallowed. “It’s just an animal.”
Crunch.
Closer.
Jake reached for the curtain, but Emily grabbed his wrist. “Don’t.”
Crunch.
A shadow passed by the window. Tall. Unnaturally thin.
Then came the whisper.
“Smells so good in there…”
Jake dropped the popcorn.
The front door creaked.
Not the wind. Not imagination.
Something was pushing it open.
The stench of rancid butter flooded the air, thick and nauseating.
Emily and Jake backed away as a figure stepped into the dim light.
It was wrong.
A man—if you could call it that. His skin was pale, slick with grease. His limbs were long, bent at angles that didn’t make sense. His fingers were coated in melted butter, his nails like burnt kernels.
His face…
There was a pale looking face accompanied with a devlish pair of fangs.
His voice was a slithering whisper:
“Wasteful children…”
Jake screamed. Emily grabbed a chair and hurled it at him.
The Popcorn Man didn’t flinch. He just opened his mouth wider.
And from the abyss inside him, they heard the screams of the ones who came before.
“DON’T WASTE THE BUTTER.”
Emily yanked Jake’s arm and ran for the kitchen. The lights flickered. The walls dripped with grease.
The Popcorn Man moved faster than he should. One second he was at the door—the next, he was in the hallway.
His body didn’t move right. Every step was a sickening crackle, like breaking bones and crunching kernels.
Emily shoved Jake into the pantry. “Stay quiet.”
Jake’s breath was shaky. “Emily—”
“I can SMELL YOU.”
The voice was inside the pantry.
Jake gasped.
Emily turned.
And saw the buttery hand reaching from the shelves.
Jake was gone.
One moment he was there—the next, only the scent of burnt popcorn remained.
Emily fell to her knees, shaking.
The whisper slithered around her ears.
“Not hungry anymore. But I will be soon.”
Then… silence.
Emily was alone.
The only thing left of Jake was a single burnt kernel on the floor.
And the smell of butter.
Always, the stench of butter.
