Carrie's Spooky House of Awesomely Terrible Stuff
Or: How I Learned to Love Eldritch Horrors
Warning, contains massive amounts of references and shenanigans. Spoops!
- I -
It has been two years since you moved to Elmore from a small town in Colorado. Sure, you missed all the aliens, Satan, foul-mouthed kids beating the snot out of each other, and the ManBearPig, but a new town equalled to the new start of an adventure. At least, that's what your younger self would tell you.
In truth, you didn't really want to move. After all, why would you miss the chance to beat up some Nazi zombies if they ever showed up again? Your dad got a new job as retail supervisor of a store at the Elmore Mall. It paid the bills at least, but you're stuck with eating grass. For the rest of your life.
Well, it could have been worse. You could have been stuck with handouts only.
That wasn't your problem though. Your problem for Halloween night was what to do. You wanted to spend the night playing World of Battlecraft and do a few dungeon raids with friends. After all, Snowstorm was having a Halloween event. Dad would be home late anyway, so you're on your own. Nothing says good time like having several cup noodles, branded unhealthy energy drinks, and the occasional toilet break while playing your favourite game.
You rang up some friends back at Colorado, only to discover they were out trick-or-treating and/or holding occult meetings to summon the next Elder God. You clenched your right hand into a fist, feeling anger bubble in you. Great, they just ruined your chances of getting limited edition loot. Alas, there was nothing much you could do without your peeps. Sighing sadly, you decided to go watch some television instead.
As you went to downstairs to the kitchen to grab some food from the cabinet, your doorbell rang. Thinking it was some trick-or-treating kids and with no candy to give, you decided to ignore it. Only after taking a single step, the doorbell rang again. This time, it kept ringing incessantly. You thought you heard several hushed giggles outside followed by some muttering. Hungry and peeved after your friends ditched you, you felt like giving those kids a piece of your mind.
They must have heard you coming because just before you reached the door, the voices stopped. Turning to knob violently and pulling back the door, you put up your best angry face as you could. Before you could shout at them for disturbing the peace, you noticed a piece of paper at the porch instead. You looked up just in time to see three figures run down the street while snickering with glee. Also, you could've sworn one of them was…a ghost? Even after seeing so many crazy things happen back at your old hometown, the paranormal still struck a deep-rooted phobia within you. Not even the aliens could pull that off.
Turning back to the piece of paper, you picked it up and examined it. It seemed like – actually, it was – a badly drawn poster inviting you to a haunted house attraction. Come 2 Karrie Carrie's Sppoky House of Awesomely Bad Evil Terrible Stuff, it read. You remember passing by a creepy-looking house near the edge of town, complete with a graveyard. Was that the place? You flipped the paper around and saw a crudely drawn map that was done with crayons and colour pencils. While the drawing was so bad it could scare artists into a coma, the drawing of the house was clear enough that it confirmed your suspicions.
At the very bottom of the map, the words 'entry fee' was written followed by an equal sign and a picture 5 candies. It was interesting, seeing them getting candy this way. In a way, it impressed you that they went through some novel effort to gain candy rather than the traditional method of bothering neighbours. In fact, it impressed you so much, you actually thought it was a good idea to go see what it was about. You went to the kitchen and rummaged the cabinets for some candies. You ended up with a melted chocolate bar, a peppermint sweet, a piece of candy corn from last year, a mysterious red sweet, and a piece of sweet-sour candy strip. That should suffice.
You slipped on a black jacket and stuffed the candies into your pocket. There was nothing else you needed, at least, nothing came to your mind. You're just there to kill time and perhaps humour the kids and yourself for a bit. The night was still young, may as well make good use of it while it lasted. Since your dad didn't have a spare key, you slipped it under the welcome mat after locking the door. Given that you were still not familiar with Elmore's streets, you took the poster with you despite how crude it was.
Or you could just take a taxi.
It seemed like the creepy house had a bit of bad reputation about it, so said the rock taxi driver. You didn't feel like talking, so you let him ramble all the way to your destination. He mentioned about ghosts, ghouls, and poltergeists, the usual creepy stuff found in most horror movies. Just when you thought he couldn't shut up, the car stopped. You jerked forward a bit due to how suddenly he applied the brakes.
"Well, here's your stop buddy. You sure this is where you wanna be?" he asked while turning around to face you.
You looked at him, then alternated attention to the house to your left. Graveyard, dilapidated window shutters, dead tree, cawing ravens…yep, this was definitely it.
[Yes, it is.] [What's it to you?] [Say nothing]
He looked at you with a raised eyebrow as you chose to say nothing to him. Ten seconds passed before he started rubbing the back of his head, feeling rather awkward when his question went unanswered.
"Um…that'll be 5 dollars and 20 cents," he said politely while opening his right palm.
You gave him 6 and gestured for him to keep the change. For a second, you thought you saw a glimmer in his eyes. He wanted to say something to you, but you had already opened the door and slammed it shut. Finally, no more monologues from him. You stood by the sidewalk for a bit as you watched the taxi made a U-turn and back to the well-lit part of town. He looked happy, but at the same time, you caught him looking at you with worry as the taxi passed by.
No turning back now. You pushed open the rusty gates and made your way to the house. A gust of wind was the first thing that greeted you, followed by a cawing raven staring at you with silent interest. It was perched on a dead tree just by a well. It cocked its head before flying off into the night like a bat disturbed. Curiosity dictated you go peer into the well, but you didn't want to. Nope, no way in heck.
You proceeded further up the path, eyeing each tombstone that was close enough to you. For some reason, the soil covering the graves seemed freshly turned…
None of these tombstones had German names, so there wasn't a chance for a Nazi zombie encounter. Still, even if there were any, you didn't feel up to the task to beat their eyes out. After all, ganging up on zombies was where you got your bravado from. You coward. Suppressing a shiver induced by the cold night air and a bit of fear, you pressed on until you almost reached the house.
You looked behind you, wondering if the rustling you just heard indicated a stalker. In your absentmindedness, you bumped into something in front of you. Quickly, you turned back and saw a blue cat dressed in a Grim Reaper's outfit complete with a scythe, a…goldfish with legs with glow-in-the-dark paint painted on him so that he looked like a skeleton, and a ghost girl grinning at you with two rows of sharp teeth.
[Whoa!] [What the hell, why'd you scare me like that?!] [Say nothing]
You kept quiet, wondering what they were going to do next. Their grins turned into neutral expressions, then into one of confusion and awkwardness as you did not give them the reaction they were expecting. They looked at each other, then back at you, then at the piece of paper you were holding.
The blue cat cleared his throat and attempted a scary pose – which seemed silly in your opinion – and did a mock evil laugh. "Muahaha, you have arrived, mortal. We were expecting you," he announced with a surprisingly low and guttural voice. How did he do that?
"Do you fear death, new neighbour?" the goldfish asked while stretching his legs and leaning forward so that he was at eye level and face-to-face with you.
"Because if you do," the ghost girl continued with her dark grin and paused for a dramatic effect. Just when you thought she was about to say something corny, her expression flattened. "Then I don't think this is for you."
[What?] [Are you wasting my time?] [Say nothing]
You raised an eyebrow and starred at her.
"You don't talk much, do you?" she asked while looking at you with genuine curiosity.
"Or react at all," the blue cat added. He waved his hand at your face. "Dude, he could totally be a living statue for the spooky house," he said to the goldfish with a grin on his face.
The goldfish let out a long gasp while pressing his cheeks. "You're right. He could up the scare factor!"
"Um, guys, should we…proceed with our tour?" the ghost girl asked.
Their eyes widened with realisation that they had derailed their original intentions. Turning back to you, the blue cat put on his scary voice again. "To enter the halls of madness, you need to pay a fee of 5 candies to the gatekeeper. Beware, for crossing these gates will be the point of no return."
The goldfish ran up to the door and stood there with his right arm outstretched and his hand opened. This was where you would part ways with the candies you brought from home. You walked up to him, reached into your pocket, and dropped them all into his open hand in one go. He stuffed them into a bag and placed it on the floor. Then, he proceeded to open the doors like an undead butler inviting guests from beyond into halls haunted by the paranormal. Despite you keeping a straight face, your heart was practically roaring and beating at your ribcage with a sledgehammer.
"Let your journey to the underworld…begin. I and Darwinstein, and he," Darwin gestured towards the blue cat who just joined up you. "Is Gumball the Reaper. We shall be your guide. Be careful and follow close, or risk having your sanity drained by these walls."
These walls? You peered into the house and saw cheap comedy and tragedy masks hanging on them. They looked like something someone would sell on eBay for a cheap price. Still, you secretly gave them credit for making the atmosphere as oppressive as possible. Staring at the masks seemed to make the walls warp for some reason. You felt a shove as Gumball and Darwin pushed you into the house and closed the doors behind you.
"Alright, first things first, dude, Gumball said in a serious voice. "Do not, I repeat, do not touch the Dodj or Daar game. He pointed at an inconspicuous board game placed on a table by the fireplace and narrowed his eyes. "If you do, we're doomed to finish it."
"Why'd we bring it here anyway?" Darwin asked.
"Well duh, this is an evil place. Naturally, it needs an evil game to go with the vibe," Gumball answered matter-of-factly.
"Oh, right."
Turning back to you, Gumball said, "Now, let us begin our journey."
This was gonna be a long night, and it seemed like the kids made a lot of effort to make the place as creepy as possible. You may as well enjoy it, or at least pretend to.
A/N: I've been watching The Amazing World of Gumball for a while, but never gotten around to writing a fanfic about it. Given that it's almost Halloween, I thought I'd write one. It ain't perfect, but I hope it's entertaining at least. I'm not a perfect writer, and I know mistakes will slip through occasionally. Feel free to point them out so I can correct them. Comments and suggestions are appreciated too!