A Halloween Story; A Haunted, Haunted House

 Stacy arrives at the old, abandoned barn around five in the afternoon, two hours before the Haunted house was supposed to open. As her mom pulls in the long gravel driveway Stacy’s excitement increases exponentially. She is a small ten-year-old girl with blonde pigtails. She loves the fun of holidays, especially Halloween. She has been involved with the Holiday Event Club since first grade. It is a school club that puts on holiday events as fundraisers for the local school district. As she pulls up to the barn, she sees her friends and excitedly unbuckles her seatbelt before the car stops and opens the door right as it does. As she steps out of the car she smiles and says “Hi” to her friends as she grabs her backpack and runs over to them. Her mom says “have fun sweetie” “I will, thanks mom” Stacy responds as she rushes over to her friends laughing and smiling. They have two hours to finish setting up the haunted house. It was in a large run-down barn that the Holiday Event Club had rented for this year's haunted house. It had boxes full of cold spaghetti that felt like worms, large toy spiders, and webs, animatronic werewolves, winches, ghosts, and even aliens, as well as caldron steam machines generating a thick fog as strobe lights flashed and evil laughs played.

Stacy and her friend Clair walked through the haunted house to make sure it looked good and scary. They screamed as animatronic witches laughed, strobe lights flashed, werewolves sprung out from the walls, spiders dropped from the ceiling and fog filled the rooms. As they walked out of the barn, Gwen asked “how’s it look?” Clair and Stacy looked at each other, then at Gwen and simultaneously said “really good, maybe one of our best yet” “Awesome” Gwen said as she handed them bags of candy and toys. “Are you sure we have enough goodie bags?’ Stacy asked “oh we have plenty” Gwen replied as she pointed to a stack of boxes, the top one open and filled to the brim. “Ok cool” Stacy said as she grabbed the bag “we have like five minutes till people start arriving let’s go make sure Sue is all set up at the Ticket table” Clair and Gwen nodded as all three girls headed around to the front.

At seven in the evening people started showing up, though not as many as the girls were hoping, those that did seemed to have a great time. The girls heard screams and laughs coming from inside and received many compliments from customers eating their candy. The haunted house would be open till midnight, but at around eight it began to slow down and by eight thirty the last customer left. The girls waited around a little disappointed till about nine when they heard teenage boys laughing and approaching the barn. Excited at first until Stacy noticed the boys and said, “oh no it’s my brother Allen”.

Allen was Stacy’s fourteen-year-old brother, he was a tall skinny kid with buzzed black hair. Him and his friends thought they were too old for Halloween fun, and too cool to be scared. Allen wasn’t even wearing a costume, unless you count the punisher shirt he wore almost every day. Him and his friends just went there to bully Stacy and her friends, one of Allen's favorite things to do. “Hey losers” Allen said as he and his friends laughed and approached the ticket counter “how lame is this one? Just like last year or even more?” he continued as he laughed. “Actually, it’s very cool everybody that went through said as much” Clair said in response before Allen mocked her “oh it’s very cool, must be, that’s why no one is here” Stacy said, "why don’t you buy a ticket and see for yourself?” “Oh ya, like I’m gonna waste five bucks on some loser's lame haunted house barn” Allen responded in a sarcastic tone. “It’s for a good cause” Gwen said “oh is it for a good cause? Allen said mockingly before continuing “get bent losers” Gwen was about to speak up before Stacy jumped in saying “Don’t bother Gwen, he’s too scared, they all are and being jerks is just how they cope”. This bothered Allen and his friends as their laughs and mocking smiles turned into angry frowns. “Oh ya, you think you losers could scare us?” Allen said as he took his wallet out and reached back to his friends Todd, James, Terry, And Alex all of whom passed him five dollars. Allen handed Gwen twenty-five dollars and said “I’ll take five tickets loser” Gwen handed him five jack o'lantern shaped pieces of orange paper that read ADMIT ONE. Allen handed Stacy the tickets as he, Todd, James, Terry, and Alex headed through the entry still laughing like bullies, that laughter, however, would not last long.

For a little while the laughing and sarcastic screams continued, Allen saying “oh this is real scary” with a sarcastic tone and laugh, his friends responded “oh ya very scary” matching his tone. Soon they came across a metal door, very out of place in the mostly wooden structure. Above the door hung a red <EXIT> sign in angled brackets, and on the door worn out red letters that said DO NOT ENTER. Allen said "c'mon guys let’s get outta here, we still have time to find something less lame” as he opened the door and walked through followed by his four friends. Suddenly it appeared they were in a futuristic looking large metal control room. “Ahh what the hell is this” Todd asked as everyone else shook their heads mumbling. Allen said “it doesn’t matter” as he turned around and tried to open the door he had just come through, but he could not. It appeared it was locked. Allen struggled to open it saying “what the hell” as he pulled, then pushed, then pulled again, harder and harder. “What’s going on?” Alex asked, “I don’t know, it seems to be locked” Allen answered. Then suddenly they heard a loud echoing growl, and they all froze in fear. A second growl echoed, then a third. “W-wh-what was that?” Terry asked, stuttering in fear. “I-I don’t know, "Todd replied. “It’s probably just my sister trying to scare us” Allen said “I know it’s you Stacy it’s not working, so you can stop now” he continued before another echoing growl and a sudden beast twice as tall as a man with sharp metallic hair jumped down from the ceiling. All five of the boys screamed in unison before another monster jumped down and the screams got louder before they all started to run, and a chase sequence occurred. Alex found another door that opened easily and yelled “over here guys” as they all ran through the door and closed it quickly Alex and Todd leaned against it as the beasts hit the door hard and the rest of the boys scrambled to find things to barricade it with. Finally, they found a light switch, saw a lock on the door that Todd latched as Allen pushed a couch against it. The punching of the door continued for a few seconds. After it stopped the boys looked around. It appeared they were in some kind of office; they saw a desk with a large computer screen on it. Aleen tapped the screen, and a video began to play. “Hello, hello, my name is Captain Skib, our mission was to collect data from a deep space asteroid, though something has gone terribly wrong, some kind of virus, probably in a strange metal turned our miner into a monster, he grew sharp metallic hair all over his body and doubled in size. He went crazy and started scratching the rest of the crew, we finally got him caged but then the rest of the crew went through the same transformation. I was the only one left. They turned on me and I didn’t stand a chance. I tried to use the transporter key on the main door, but I was attacked, almost got scratched and it got flung and lost in the struggle. Finding that key is my only hope, But if I don’t make it I need anyone who’s watching this to know, DON’T LET THEM SCRATCH YOU, you will turn fairly quickly and go after anyone who isn’t, and if you come across this message and don’t see me than it would seem I didn’t make it, if you do, please tell my family I love them” The screen went staticky for a second then came back with Skib screaming “NOOOOOOOOOOOO” in response to growls before the screen went to static for the last time.

The boys stood in the office, stunned in silence for a moment, before Alex said “dawg, your sister really out did herself with this one” Allen responded “shut up dude, this is not her, she couldn’t pull this off if she wanted too, this is real” Alex gulped and said “I was afraid of that, what do we do now?” “We gotta find that key” Allen replied as he opened the door slightly and peered through it. “Okay I don’t see the monsters, when we get out there, we need to split up and silently look for that key, it will probably be on the ground somewhere by the door we first came through”. The rest of the boys nodded in agreement, as Allen looked at them and said “okay, ready, three, two, wo” He noticed some ripped clothes and blood on his friends and asked, "what is that pointing at the rips?” they answered “oh these? Just some little scratches” “WHAT after what we just heard?” When suddenly Alex, Terry, Todd, and James began sprouting sharp metallic hair all over their body as they grew twice their original size. Allen screamed in a surprisingly high pitched tone before swinging open the door and booking it out as yet another chase sequence occurred Allen made it to the main door which he still couldn’t open, looking around frantically he saw another door with a deadbolt on it a bit to the left, he dove toward it and got inside a room with a key on the inside lock, he closed it, turned the key, and pulled it out of the lock frantically before breathing heavily hearing pounding on the door and his friends speaking “c’mon Allen, you can’t get away, might as well just join us, join us join us” in low pitched monstrous tones.

Allen waited in the room, and waited, and waited. What had to be years seemed to go by, he grew a beard and his hair went gray. His body got taller and frailer. It was lucky the room he found himself in was a well-stocked dorm with plenty of food and even some entertainment. He still almost went crazy though isolated, and all alone as he grew old. One day he hurt his back bending over to pick up the remote “OUCH” he screamed as he fell to the ground hurting his knees as he landed. “OUCH” he yelled again before beginning to cry, an old man now without human contact for most of his life at this point. As tears flowed from his eyes and snot from his nose, he opened his eyes to a wonderful sight. A plastic key card looking thing that said T.K. on it. Wiping his eyes and sniffing he read “T K, TK, transporter key, TRANSPORTER KEY HOORAY” he screamed “I FOUND IT, I FINALLY FOUND IT” now smiling for the first time in years, he had lost hope some years back but now it all came flooding back. He began to strategize.

He opened the door slightly and silently, as he peered through it, he noticed his monstrous friends pacing and growling looking like they haven’t aged a day. With the transporter key and dorm room key in hand, he turned off the light in the room and began to whistle and say “Alex, Terry, James, Todd, come here I’m ready. His monstrous friends looked toward the room and began walking then running toward the door. Allen waited silently by the door until all his friends ran through, he slipped out, closed the door and turned the deadbolt, locking them in. “Oh Allen, you know you can’t escape, you’re old and frail now, let us scratch you, you’ll feel much better” they yelled at him as they hit the door harder and harder getting angrier and angrier. “Allen replied “I got the key now losers, see ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya” as he got to the main door, slipped the transporter key into a side slit, heard a buzz and finally opened it effortlessly. Back in the barn he ran toward the entrance. As he got outside, he realized he was younger and saw his sister. Running up to her he said “Stacy I’m so sorry, you’re not a loser, I was, you’re really cool, and I’ll never bully you again, I’m so sorry” he said to her as he hugged her hard and even picked her up for a second. Stacy responded “It’s ok, I’m glad you got out” as her friends laughed. Allen let her go and said, wiping his eyes “wait, what? You are?” Stacy said with a smirk “Yes, so now we can scratch you” her voice got deep as her, Claire, Gwen, and Sue grew twice as tall and sprouted sharp metallic hair!!! 

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