A large billboard stood out front of the decaying house, a cartoon black widow welcoming patrons to “the haunted-est house in the state of Verm-HAUNT” with its fangs in a sinister grin. A window on the second floor creaked open and shut with only a slight squeak, but the vacant plain around the house was silent, bordered by only cornfields. There were only a few other cars in the lot, but Dylan chalked that up to it being a Monday night.
With Dylan in the lead, the kids stepped apprehensively over the threshold of the front door. They entered into a small lobby, where a disinterested clerk sat behind a glass window. “How many?” she asked, unenthused.
“There’s three of us, paying separate,” Dylan explained, handing over his money. Despite the blank expression of the clerk, Dylan was beaming. This was going to be his year.
“Sure you’re not going to wimp out this year?” Alfie said, nudging Dylan on the shoulder. “There’s not much time left to turn back.” He laughed, pulling out his wallet.
“Hey, you didn’t go in last year either. Besides, I’m a mature adult now,” Dylan argued.
“You ran out back to the car screaming before we even got inside that time. I wasn’t going to pay to go through a haunted house on my own, man,” Alfie said, laughing and accepting his change. “And turning 18 doesn’t magically make you not a weenie. I’m here to watch you get the pants scared off of you, bro.”
“Five bucks says he doesn’t make it past the first door,” Carrie said, paying her own way.
“Shut up, Carrie, you slept all the way here. You’re not even excited,” Dylan grumbled.
“I didn’t want to listen to you two re-live your middle school lacrosse days, so sue me.”
“Hey! We made it to the final 16 one year!” Dylan protested.
“Save it for your college applications, chief. Let’s go in,” she said, pulling Alfie by the arm towards the door. Dylan scampered over to the door, bouncing front foot to foot with anticipation.
Screeeeech-ch-ch-ch went the door, and the kids hurried in. The light from the lobby illuminated the dark room through the doorway. Dylan’s eyes adjusted and he saw the antique furniture covered in sheets and cobwebs, a grandfather clock, and a large mirror at the back wall.
Carrie clung to Alfie’s arm. Alfie shook her off to take a step forward, and let out a solitary chuckle. “So I suppose this is when the door slams shut behind us and we’re locked in?”
Dylan and Carrie jumped and turned around. The door hung wide open, letting all the light into the room. The door hung ajar, and they could see the clerk out in the lobby, who pulled out a full bag of tortilla chips and started to snack.
Alfie, who stood directly in the slant of light, raised an eyebrow. “Maybe you’re standing too close to it?” he suggested. Carrie ran to hide behind Alfie, and Dylan took a step forward. The door remained unmoved.
“You have to shut it yourself,” the clerk stood up in her booth and yelled.
“Oh,” Dylan said. He swung the door shut.
The room was pitch dark for a fraction of a second, barely long enough for Carrie to let out a scream, before the candelabras flickered on.
The three stood near the clock, just looking around. After a few moments of bored silence, Dylan asked, “So, what are we supposed to do now?” The others shrugged.
Dylan turned towards the clock, hands on his hips. “I suppose we look around.”
He approached the clock, which had cobwebs hanging off both of the hands. There was a knob on the front, which opened the drawer below the clock.
When he reached for the knob, he heard a yelp behind him.
“Carrie, relax,” Dylan sighed.
“That wasn’t me.” Carrie crossed her arms and glared at Alfie, who laughed nervously.
“I wanted to see if he’d jump,” Alfie stammered. He continued laughing, and Carrie rolled her eyes.
Dylan yanked the cupboard open, recoiling back from what he expected to jump out at him. In his head, he was ready to face ghosts or rats or clowns or anything else that could have been ready to jump out from inside the clock. Carrie jumped behind Alfie, who yelped again, and put her hands on his shoulders.
Nothing exited the clock drawer. The hands did not spin, and the chime did not ring. Dylan leaned down to look inside the cupboard. There was nothing inside other than another was of sticky cobwebs. “It’s empty,” he reported.
“Good!” Alfie commented, a little too quickly. “I mean, I didn’t want to have to carry you out of here because you faint or something. Hahahahaha…”
Dylan got up and walked towards the fireplace, thinking something terrifying had to be hiding in there. He kicked a wad of cobwebs out from the middle of the rug.
“If I get scared, would you carry me out of here, Alfie?” Carrie cooed.
“Chill, Carrie,” Alfie warned.
“You wouldn’t carry Carrie?” Dylan asked over his shoulder.
“Not Carrie,” Alfie said.
“What would you do to me, then?” Carrie questioned, a suggestive tone in her voice.
“No, I mean, not you, Carrie,” Alfie explained, shuddering as his foot touched a sheet that covered an armchair.
“Wait, what?” Carrie asked.
“Like, carry Carrie,” Dylan said.
“What?” Carrie asked.
“Carrie!” Alfie shouted.
“What?” Carrie asked.
“Forget it. Anything in there, Dylan?”
Dylan kneeled down, but he couldn’t see into the fireplace because there were too many cobwebs in the way. He grabbed a metal rod and wound up the webs, and tossed them aside. Taking a deep breath, he stuck his head in the empty fireplace. There was nothing.
Dylan stood up. “I think we should split up. Maybe they think that we won’t be scared enough if we’re all together.”
“Good idea! Alfie and I will look upstairs,” Carrie said, looping her arm around Alfie’s waist, who promptly drew back.
“Uh ah, no way, dude. That’s some Scooby Doo shit right there. That makes the maniacs come out and before you know it, one of us is tied to a log at the mill sliding down towards the saw while some demented swamp monster cackles into a thunderstorm!” Alfie shook as he told his tale, but upon observing the confused looks of his friends, he composed himself. “Yeah, like, Dylan will just start crying if we leave him alone. HAHAHAH what a baby!”
“Ok…” Dylan said, running his hand along the mantle above the fireplace. “I guess not. Anyone want to open that closet door?” He lifted his hand to scratch his nose, but realized he’d accidentally picked up long strands of cobwebs off the mantle. He shook them off his hand wildly. “Enough with the cobwebs!” he yelled to no one in particular, hoping to pique the interest of a concealed ghoul or deranged farmhand with an axe in one and a bicycle chain in the other. Those were the two nightmares he’d written about in his journal, and were the only ones his mind could conjure at the moment.
“You do it, Dylan,” Carrie prodded.
“Yeah, I will! There’s got to be a monster in the closet, right?” Dylan scrambled towards the closet.
Alfie stood totally still. Carrie wrapped her arm around his back and nudged him forward with her fingertips. As soon as he felt something against his back, Alfie screamed and spun 180 degrees, karate chopping the air where Carrie’s arm had been. His eyes went wide. “Oh, HAHAHA. Just you, Carrie. HA. For a second there, I thought there was someone about to sneak up on us. So lame. HA. Open the door Dylan. Oh, god.”
Dylan cleared his throat, priming his voice for the shrieks of terror he’d been anticipating all night. He rolled his shoulders back and cracking his fingers in front of him. Carrie leaned into Alfie, who was biting his fingernails.
In one motion, Dylan whipped the door open. Something that hung on the back of the door swung back and forth. Alfie’s scream pierced the air. Carrie whimpered and tried to jump into Alfie’s arms, bridal style, just as Alfie had dropped to the floor like a fainting goat. They landed in a pile on the creaky hardwood.
Dylan had only staggered backward before realizing that it was just a huge clump of cobwebs stuck to the inside of the door. He looked inside to find only more of the same. Cobwebs were hanging from the top and sides of the closet and were draped over the rod, which didn’t even hold a single hanger or moth-eaten, bloody overcoat.
“I cannot believe this! I came here to be scared and there’s nothing but cobwebs in here! That’s not scary! It’s like they aren’t even trying! UGH!” Dylan moaned. It was the only moan they had heard all night, to be exact. Not a single ghostly moan echoed through the house, and Dylan couldn’t take it anymore. He was ready to rip up the floorboards just to find something remotely scary.
“Wait!” Carrie chirped from the floor, where she laid on top of Alfie until he pushed her off. “What’s that on the mirror?”
The boys turned to look at the mirror above the ancient sofa. There was a small mark in the corner that Dylan hadn’t noticed before. He got closer, desperate for a clue.
“No, no, no, no…” Alfie blubbered.
“We can go wait alone in the car if you want,” Carrie whispered to him, tracing a line down his chest with her finger.
Alfie grabbed her wrist and held it up in front of her face, bending her pointer finger into a curve. “And wait for a hook-handed guy to scrape on the windshield and kill us both while Dylan is safe inside this creepy house? NO WAY.”
Dylan got up close to the mirror. In the corner was a small arrow, drawn in something red, pointing upwards. He looked back at his friends once, and then up at the ceiling, ready to see fresh blood or a particularly acrobatic zombie.
Instead, the ceiling was completely whited out by cobwebs.
“You’re kidding,” Dylan said, all traces of former enthusiasm gone from his voice completely. “Guys, I’m done. Let’s go.”
The others nodded, Carrie frowning as Alfie cowered in her arms. The three made their way towards the door and shuffling out through the lobby.
“Sorry it sucks,” the clerk at the window called to Dylan just before he was out the front door.
Dylan chuckled, “Yeah, me too,” he said, and then he let the door slam behind him.
The clerk got up from her chair, and leaning over to make sure the kids weren’t coming back, she exited her booth, her two sets of extra legs skittering across the wooden floors.
“Dang it,” she said to herself. “I thought for sure I had it that time.” She looked around the room that had been barely disturbed by her customers. She stroked her chin pensively.
“Must need more cobwebs.”
-Ivy Decker, Senior Staff-Member