19 Stories - An Anthology

WEEK 2: "HAUNTED HOUSE"

Hahahahahahaha... I fell behind on my second week... this is going to be such a successful challenge :)

Really, though, I was SUPER busy last week and I've been writing bits and pieces of this at night. With one-shots like this, it's hard to find a good plot arc because you can't change the relationship too drastically. Anyway, here is "Haunted House", in which a headstrong girl (Kasey) accidentally punches her crush (Ethan) in the face at a haunted house.

Prompt: "You work in a haunted house and I accidentally punched you in the face when you scared me."

———

Lame, lame, lame.

That was my only thought as I navigated pools of blood, spooky hallways, and dodged skeletons with chainsaws.

I had a good reason though. The blood was fake and the consistency of cranberry juice. The spooky hallways were just corridors in a church basement with the lights turned out. It still smelt like last Sunday's coffee break, and the neon exit signs dotting the walls now and again were really ruining the spooky vibes. As for the skeletons with chainsaws? They were just nine-year-old kids in cheap costumes wielding cardboard saws.

Yep. Cardboard.

Officially the least scary haunted house on the face of the Earth. I mean, to be fair, it was a church-sponsored event. Still, far more effort could have gone into the execution—no pun intended—of the event.

I strolled past a decapitated head on a plate without blinking. Classic hole-in-the-table trick. A toy spider dropped from a pulley and I batted it away tiredly. It took all my energy not to yawn.

Finally, FINALLY, I made it to the end of the haunted house. I climbed the stairs, ducking under the fake cobwebs. What a waste of five bucks! At least it was for a church fundraiser...

I stepped out the back door. The church backed onto a small thicket of forest, and I groaned as I realized I'd have to navigate through the woods in the dark. There was a clear path, where someone had generously installed a single string of white Christmas lights to guide a haunted house guest back to the Halloween festival on Main Street.

Yes, I said Main Street. It's a small town, so we have one of those.

I looked down at the ground, where my dusty Converse were following the trail. The wind whistled in the trees in a way that was definitely-not-at-all-frightening on a Halloween night. I don't get scared, you see. Yes, the annual Baptist Church haunted house was lame, but I always thought I'd be able to handle a scarier one, or—truthfully—an actual Halloween Apocalypse with real ghosts and vampires. But as I walked that perfectly safe and totally familiar path that night, something felt off.

Was it the owl sitting motionless in the tree? Was it the actual spiderwebs between the branches? Perhaps it was just the wind. I began to calm down, when it happened.

Movement in the bushes.
Arms on my shoulders.
Hot breath on my neck.
A terrifying howl.

Had I manifested a Halloween apocalypse just by thinking about it? There was no time to wonder. My reflexes, whip-quick from 2 years of karate at the small dojo in town, kicked in and I whirled around.

Kick to the shins.
Knee to the groin.
Punch smack-dab in the middle of the face.

I leapt back a couple yards and held out my arms defensively. I fumbled for my phone flashlight to try and find out what my attacker was. You know, so I'd be able to plan my defense. If it was a vampire, I decided I would grab a fallen branch and stab it in the heart. If it was a werewolf, I'd offer the dog biscuit in my pocket as a peace offering. If it was a mummy, I'd karate chop until it fell apart.