The Spookdate Expedition
"Oh, come on, Moon Pie! It'll be fun!" Penny's cheerful voice floated down towards Sheldon across an old, abandoned, and fairly creepy courtyard. A strange kind of feeling, something like dread, had settled into the back of the theoretical physicist's mind, though he paid it no attention. Penny wouldn't mention it to Sheldon, but a block of ice had settled comfortably into her stomach, making itself at home.
Sheldon took the few moments of quiet he had while trooping up to the old mansion's front doors to wonder again how he had gotten into this predicament.
What had started out as a harmless argument about the existence of ghosts and spirits and doppelgangers and what-have-you hokum had turned into a monthly trip, every Anything-Can-Happen Thursday, to someplace in the vicinity that had rumors of being 'haunted'. While they had come across some fairly creepy things—an old graveyard wherein a woman thought guilty of being a witch was buried, surrounded by trees that stubbornly refused to grow over her grave (indeed, they decided to fold in on themselves and go back the way they came instead of continuing on over her grave), old houses that creaked when you stepped in them and smelled of hundreds of years of dust (Sheldon had protested vociferously and he and Penny had left, much to the latter's dismay)—nothing so far had convinced Sheldon of the fact that, indeed, ghosts and spirits were more than just hokum.
This Anything-Can-Happen Thursday, however, had turned into something much larger than a simple trip-to-a-really-old-house-or-graveyard. When Penny had come over, announcing with triumph that she had found a house that was indeed, truly haunted, Sheldon had snorted with derision. Raj, however, had seemed interested—he had heard about that specific house somewhere on the internet, and wanted to go with them. Howard, who had translated for Raj, had his brain in his pants and decided that he couldn't let the opportunity to comfort a 'hollow and fearful' Penny go to waste. Leonard had at first been fine to let them go alone, but after Penny protested having Raj and Howard join her and Sheldon on their monthly 'spookdate', he changed his mind and decided to tag along (after asking Sheldon to 'catch him up' once more).
So, lo and behold, Penny had driven Sheldon, Howard, Raj, and Leonard up to some house in Middle-Of-Nowhere, California. A house that looked like it hadn't seen daylight for some years, much less been cleaned in the recent century. Thankfully Sheldon had come prepared this time, with two pairs of latex gloves (one was a backup), a surgical mask, a can of "Early Morning Breeze" scented Lysol, and a Swiffer-Duster. Thus, he trucked up the hill, through a fairly overgrown courtyard with large rocks jutting out of the earth and flowers that smelled too strongly of lavender, up a cobblestone path that had been eaten alive by weeds, and to the front door that looked as if it would rot off of its hinges. Penny was there, looking smug, excited, and apprehensive all at once. Raj was dancing around on his toes as if he had to pee, Howard was spraying himself with more cologne (Axe, of course,) and Leonard was standing uncomfortably close to Penny, wheezing with laughter at a joke he had just made.
"Moonpie, it's time for me to prove you wrong!" Penny told Sheldon, as she always did before they began their spookdate-expeditions. Before Sheldon had a chance to remind Penny that no one called him Moonpie but Meemaw, she had kicked open the door, unleashing a cloud of sawdust and causing Raj to squeak in an octave so high most men would have needed to be kicked in the manbeans to reach it. Penny led the way into the murky gloom of the stale and completely 'haunted' house.