A/N: Written for the Kurtbastian Hiatus Project prompt 'ghouls and ghosts'. Kid fic. Warning for bullying, anxiety, language, and some blood and gore.
"B-but…but I don't want to go in there," Kurt stutters, staring up with wide, frightened eyes at the gloomy house before him – greying wood slats falling from the siding, dusty windows clattering with the icy wind while shutters swing off their hinges, smacking dully against one another, a high whine whistling when the house shifts on its foundation as the occasional gale passes through it. A small assemblage of older boys stand behind Kurt in an array of stereotypical monster costumes – a werewolf, a vampire, a mummy, Frankenstein's monster, and a ghost – each one blocking Kurt's escape as they push him bodily towards the stairs. Outsized, outnumbered, and dressed in a handmade vintage-inspired satin harlequin costume, Kurt does his best to resist without wrinkling his outfit.
"Too bad, new kid," the vampire says, giving Kurt a shove, making him fall forward onto the first creaky step.
"Yeah," the mummy follows, giving Kurt another shove, "think of it as an initiation."
"And what if I don't?" Kurt asks stubbornly, holding his ground against a third shove.
"Then don't even consider coming back to school," the werewolf boy says, his voice muddied behind his plastic mask.
Kurt looks at the faces around him – mean, unfriendly, shrouded by masks and makeup - which makes these boys feel braver.
It also makes them more dangerous.
Kurt looks back up the staircase. He's on the second step – only three more steps to go. He lifts a foot and plants it on the next stair, slowly raising himself up as the wood plank bends in the middle. He brings his other leg up to the fourth step. Only one more step till he reaches the porch.
A breeze blows by and the shutters slam violently. Kurt gasps and starts back down, shaking his head.
"No," he says, stopped by the arms of the thugs behind him. "No, I can't do it! I won't do it!"
But each of the hulking boys grabs him by a different limb and hoists him into the air, carrying him as he screams his objections, and kicks at the air.
"No!" he cries. "Don't make me go in there! I'll tell my father! I'll tell all your fathers! Someday, you'll all work for me! Mark my words!"
They shove Kurt in the house and slam the front door shut. From inside the house they can hear Kurt pounding his hands on the door – palms flat, hitting the door so hard it rattles in its frame.
"No!" Kurt screeches. "Please! Let me out!"
The boys gathered on the porch laugh till their stomachs hurt as Kurt continues to scream, giving one another high-fives as they contemplate their next move.
"When are we going to let him out?" werewolf boy asks.
"I say we leave him in there all night," mummy boy chimes in.
They all agree that's a great idea until all of a sudden Kurt's screams change. They've gone from panicked, to bloodcurdling, to strangled, and above the sound of Kurt choking for air is a hollow, evil laugh, rising in volume and pitch, echoing around the walls inside and shaking the whole house.
The boys stop laughing and stand up straight once they hear it, stepping backward down the steps as the chilling sound grabs at their insides and squeezes tight.
"We…we should go check on him…maybe?" ghost boy suggests.
"Yeah," Frankenstein's monster agrees. "Why don't you go ahead and check on him, Vince?"
Vince, the leader of the group, dressed in the vampire costume, looks at the boys flanking him side-to-side.
"Hell, no!" he says. "I ain't opening that door for shit!"
"It was your idea!" mummy boy argues. "You're the one who wanted to bring him here!"
"Yeah!" werewolf boy intervenes. "This was your plan from the start! You should go check on him!"
"Well, you pushed him in, Dean!" Vince says, pushing ghost boy up the stairs toward the door.
"So did you!" Dean yells, pushing Vince a step higher.
All five boys start to argue, bickering back and forth until the door of the house bursts open, blowing in, breaking off its hinges and landing on the floor.
The boys stop – the silence around them mind-numbing. They stare. The gaping doorway to the house stands open like a giant mouth breathing in the night air. Vince stands up slowly, peering into the dark of the house where Kurt should be, lying on the floor, possibly dead.
"Hu-Hummel?" he calls out, swallowing hard. "K-Kurt?...Where are you, Kurt?"
Vince makes his way to the doorway with none of his gang behind him. He leans in a little, looking left and right. He turns his head back to his crew, all of whom have migrated down to the bottom stair, preparing to run.
"He's not…he's not in there."
Suddenly, a screech – a horrible, tortured howl of pain – and there Kurt is, standing in the entrance, his satin costume covered in blood, gushing from a gash in his neck that seems to go straight to the bone. Kurt's eyes are gone – two huge, morbidly empty sockets staring down at his frightened tormentors who can barely scream. As they look on in horror, maggots pour from a hole in Kurt's belly, spewing out onto the porch, scrambling into the wood with a scritching sound that burrows straight into the soul. Vince stumbles backward down the stairs to avoid them, finally managing a shrill wail as he flips over the gate and sprints off down the street, his four compatriots hot on his heel, at least one urinating noticeably.
Not until the boys are out of sight does Kurt begin to chuckle. He looks down as the glamour fades away – the blood withdrawing, the maggots disintegrating, his eyes returning from the spell that made them disappear.
"Now, don't you think that was a little much?" Kurt asks out loud, but he's not talking to himself. Sebastian is there to hear him. He's always there, and he helped Kurt with the little scheme he'd been planning ever since he found out what those bullies were concocting for Halloween night.
"Go big or go home," a voice echoes in Kurt's ears, and Kurt can see in his mind an image of the cocky boy shaking his head. "Eighth graders," the boy huffs.
"Well, we went big," Kurt says, staring down the street after the boys with a smirk. "Let's go home."
"Do you have any…threes?" Kurt asks, arranging the cards in his hand.
Sebastian uncrosses and crosses his legs.
"Go fish," Sebastian says, and Kurt picks a card.
"Do you have any…sevens?" Sebastian asks, raising his eyebrows in a knowing way.
Kurt blows out an aggravated breath and hands over the cards.
"Wait," he says, the cards just out of the reach of Sebastian's fingers, "are you cheating?"
Sebastian rolls his eyes.
"Duh!" he says, leaning forward and grabbing the cards. "What's the point of being a ghost if you're not going to cheat at cards?"
"But Sebastian, you promised to play fair," Kurt whines, throwing down his hand.
"When did I make that promise exactly?" Sebastian asks, picking up the discarded cards and reshuffling the deck. Kurt turns his head, sticking his nose in the air and crossing his arms over his chest in defiance. Sebastian sighs. "Best two out of three?" he asks.
Kurt peeks at his defeated friend and relents.
"Fine, but this time we're playing gin."
The front door opens and Kurt glances up from his spot on the floor to see his father walk in, holding plastic bags from the take-out restaurant near his shop.
"Hey, dad," Kurt says, collecting the cards being tossed his way.
"Hey, kiddo," Burt says, watching cards throw themselves at Kurt of their own accord. Burt wasn't really accepting of Kurt's abilities at first, and once he had come to grips with the fact that Kurt could communicate with ghosts and was being haunted by one, a part of him hoped it was Kurt's mother, Elizabeth. After a few off-color pranks, Burt realized they hadn't been quite so lucky. But three townships later, Kurt still had difficulty making friends, so it seemed that Sebastian (which apparently was the ghost's name) was a bit of an unexpected blessing.
It still kind of gave Burt the creeps.
"So, did you boys enjoy yourselves?" he asks, understanding the necessity of including Sebastian in the conversation.
"Yup," Kurt says, looking at his cards. "We made a group of bullies cry."
"That's good," Burt says, brushing the comment off. He's not too sure what bothers him more – the bullies or whatever it was that Kurt and his ghost friend did to make them cry. "You boys help yourself to some food. I'm going to go take a quick rinse."
"Sure thing, Mr. H," Sebastian calls out. Kurt knows that Sebastian realizes his dad can't hear him, but he'll answer him every so often like that. Kurt thinks it's probably so that he can feel normal.
Kurt gets it. After his mother passed away, nothing in his life felt normal – that was until Sebastian came along.
Sebastian waits until Kurt's father heads to the kitchen with the food before he says anything.
"Your father does know I don't eat, right?" Sebastian asks, launching one last card and hitting Kurt square on the chest.
"He knows," Kurt says, putting his cards in order in his hand. "He's being polite."
Sebastian nods as he looks over his cards.
"Do you think…" Sebastian starts, moving one card to the end of his hand, and then putting it back in its original spot again, "that it bothers him? You know – me being here?"
Kurt shrugs.
"I don't think so," he replies, "as long as you behave yourself."
Kurt's tone is stern, and Sebastian knows what Kurt's referring to – the time he plugged all the toilets. It was just a joke, for laughs. Who knew Burt would try his hand at making chili that night.
"And…what about you?" Sebastian asks, finding a pair of twos in his hand and putting them down.
"What about me what?" Kurt asks, smiling and bouncing in his seat when he finds three pairs – fives, sixes, and nines – and lays them down on the carpet.
"Do you…you know…still like having me here?" Sebastian puts down a pair of queens, and even though he has no other pairs, he looks at his hand while he waits for an answer.
Kurt picks his head up and peers at Sebastian from over his cards.
"Of course, I do," he says. "You're my best friend."
"Really?" Sebastian asks, smiling slow and wide, a little more bashful than his usual grin.
"Really," Kurt says. "Now hurry up and cheat so I can go eat dinner. I'm starving."