Takes place after the season finale of American Horror Story. :)

Chapter 1: An American Creaking

"Unfortunately, my real estate company requires by law that I mention the occurrence of the home's previous occupants..."

The woman before me fidgeted nervously, glancing around the room as if expecting to see something out of the ordinary. Her short hair curled down around her ears, her face pink with worry.

My dad, oblivious as ever, was intrigued. He stared down at her through the lens of his glasses. "Don't tell me. Did they die in this house?"

The real estate agent swallowed uneasily. I watched as her fingers roughly tugged on her purse strap. "As a matter of fact, they did."

My brother spoke up. "Cool! Were they shot?"

"Connor!" I whispered. He ran a hand through his short brown hair, sticking his tongue out as me in the process. For being only two years younger than me, the kid was so inappropriate.

"No…" the woman said. "The wife of the house died while in the process of giving birth. Her husband, in his grief, hung himself from the… t-the top of the stairs." She clenched her eyes shut for a moment before proceeding to re-open them. I didn't blame her. The information she presented to us was enough to scare any home buyers away. "The house has been off of the market for a few years. My company wasn't really interested in dealing with it for awhile."

"Hmm… I see." My dad looked across the large room we currently occupied.

A thin layer of dust had already begun to settle on the coffee table near my feet since the death of its latest owners. Large light fixtures and chandeliers hung from the ceiling above. Outdated wallpapers lined the downstairs' walls and a few of the floorboards creaked when treaded upon.

The house was creepy. It wasn't scary in the way a haunted house on Halloween might be, with cob webs and coffins protruding out from the walls. It was scary in its largeness and mysteriousness. It was a wonder to both myself and my dad of why such a large house was so cheap on the market. Obviously, the history hidden behind its doors was the reason for its constant exposure to rejection.

"I am well aware I haven't been very convincing to any buyers, but I'm desperate," the woman continued on. "The house is beautiful, inside and out. Despite its history, the house is to die for. The classic windowpanes," she gestured to a variety of painted glass between the walls, "are simply marvelous. The house is large enough to entertain dozens of guests, especially those wild teenage parties," she teased, winking at me.

I held back my 'what the eff ' face.

She motioned for us to follow her down a long, dark hallway. My brother stepped forward first, eager to hear more of the freaky place. I followed a few paces behind, just alongside my dad.

"What do you think, Evelyn? Is it hip enough for a seventeen year old girl like yourself?"

"Oh my god, dad! Hip is not in right now. I don't know why you bother to keep saying it."

He raised his eyebrows expectantly at me. "That wasn't a proper answer, Ev."

I looked up as we walked, noticing the dark painted ceiling. We emerged into a softly lit kitchen, dressed up in a bunch of modern appliances. An island counter separated us from the backdoor, through which a gazebo was visible in the center of the lawn.

"The kitchen is a work of art in itself," the agent gushed. "Just look at all the features this house has to offer." She loved to talk. However, she was careful to steer far away from mentioning any other misfortunes the home had been privy to. She walked over to the archway leading back into the hall. "Shall we continue our tour upstairs?"

Both my brother and dad nodded. I just went along with the crowd.

"Have there been any weird ghost sightings?" My brother was always the curious one.

"Some," the lady squeaked. "But I wouldn't think too much of it. Some people are just crazy."

Somewhere between the agent's blabbing and my own footing, we passed by a door beneath the stairs. The woman in front of us peeked at it briefly before quickly hurrying on.

"Where does that door lead to?" I asked.

The agent, not stopping, just muttered, "The basement."

We arrived at the base of the stairway, my heels hitting some of the creaky floorboards. I looked upwards. To me, it almost seemed as if the house was mocking us at this point.

We ascended to the second floor, to which a string dangling from a door to the attic swayed from the roof. I eyed it warily. I was never a fan of attics.

The nervously twitching, babbling real estate agent went through the motives of showing us every detail, giving us little to no time to respond or comment. If I knew anything at all, I was thinking she didn't want to give us a chance to change our minds. After all, she had said herself she was desperate.

The one room that had caught my attention, according to the nervous woman, was the one the teenage girl before me had claimed as hers.

"You never admitted the couple to having a teenage daughter," my dad confessed.

"She's probably not admitting to a lot of things," I whispered to Connor, who just rolled his eyes.

"Yes, well, she disappeared. No one knows where she ran off to. There are rumors she was even involved with the disappearance of the woman's newborn child, but… well…" she swallowed for the millionth time since stepping foot into the house. "Like I said, no one knows."

As we left the room, I was sure I had heard a scoff. But when I turned around, nothing more could be seen but a bed and a few pieces of used furniture.

The floorboards creaked as I left.

"Well, what do you think?" The agent asked. "It's certainly spacious enough. Good asking price, too, if I must say."

I couldn't get over an odd feeling that had crept into my system since leaving the previous girl's room upstairs.

People say you can sense when someone is watching you. However, it's not very comforting to get that sensation and not be able to see the source.

My dad, readjusting his glasses, looked at me and my brother. "Well? What do you say? Not too spooky, hmm?"

I didn't reply.

"I think it's freaking cool!" Connor shouted. "Can I pick first bedroom?"

I was astounded. "No way! If we are going to live in this… this house, I should at least get first pick! I mean, heck… I don't even care for the place."

The woman before us began to fidget again, most likely from my expressed disapproval.

The house was beautiful, no doubt about it. But I couldn't really accept what had happened here. I was never one to be superstitious, but I was also never one to set foot in a haunted hotel or play Ouija board to find out.

My dad peered over his specs at me. "You don't like the house, sweetheart?"

My guilty conscious started to set in. I knew my dad had happily accepted a promotion, not caring if it involved him and his family moving halfway across the country, in which he had been working for years to achieve. I was also aware this was going to be one of the only houses we would ever be able to afford in this city, and probably the biggest we would ever see at such a price.

Was I about to let my nerves about some mumbo jumbo crap get in the way of my dad? After all, what if all the talk about ghosts was just a bunch of bull, and we lost this great offer of a house because of me?

I sighed.

No. I wasn't going to let that happen.

Peering around the house once more, I answered back. "No, actually. I love it." My dad's eyebrows shot for the sky. "It's kinda… perfect… in its own little charming way. I'm into old things. It's hip, as you would put it."

The agent woman smiled. "Great! Now all we will have to do is sign some paperwork…"

Both my dad and the woman left to enter another room, while my brother and I looked around.

"I'm freaked about that last room we were in. The old girl's room."

I gaped. Connor was afraid? "What? Why?"

Connor pulled out his phone and began scrolling on what I assumed to be an article. "There's this website called 'Murder House Tours' and it talks about everything that happened here. It says some kid in 1994 was shot to death in that room by police after he did a local school shooting. It even says how some creepy scientist's wife went mad and killed both him and herself after finding their baby went missing from that room. Afterwards, inspectors found cut up body parts in jars all over the basement and one time this girl-…"

"Stop! Stop it! I don't want to hear anymore. Especially after finding out the beautiful place I get to now call home is officially a tour site!" I stomped over to one of the fireplaces and concentrated on thinking about other things. Nice things.

Like rainbows and ponies and… stuff.

Dinner was somewhat quiet that night. My father had decided we should spend the night in our new home, for he would rather us get used to it now versus later. We had ordered pizza and ate together in the kitchen.

I guess everyone was wary to venture off on their own. Even my brother, who was usually fond of playing video games up in his room at our old house while he ate, was quietly eating in the kitchen.

Being the chickens we were, but not wanting to admit it to one another, we each slept in the living room in sleeping bags. I found it almost comical how no one wanted to even go to the bathroom without an escort.

As we cozied up in our sleeping bags, I tried to block out the ominous ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece. I pulled my bag up over my head to block out my surroundings and soon heard the snores of my father. The sound brought me comfort, and I dozed off to sleep without realizing.

I was in a library. Books raised up by shelves towered over my head and were scattered across tables. Some were left open, their pages flipping from the air. Forgotten. Teens about my age were frantically running and hiding beneath tables and around bookshelves. I, too, decided it would be in my best interest to disappear as quickly as possible, but for what I wasn't sure of yet.

Gun shots echoed all around and I automatically turned to look towards two double doors leading out to a hallway.

An older man, perhaps the librarian, cautiously made his way toward the door. Seconds past, and I couldn't stop breathing a sigh of relief when nothing happened. Perhaps the shooter had walked past the doors, not bothering to shoot up some bookworms. Suddenly, loud shots were made and before I knew what was occurring, the man was being shot down.

I screamed. No sound came out.

As the man fell, I noticed two new bullet holes in the door and immediately dropped to my knees. I was shaking all over.

I sloppily crawled over to a table near a wall and slid under. Backing myself up against the wall, I pulled my knees to my chest and pushed my hands over my mouth to help stifle my cries.

The doors opened.

Large, dark combat boots made their trek across the tile flooring, stopping every now and then to fire. Sometimes the boots would disappear from my sight all together, and I would hold my breath, just waiting.

A girl's scream caused me to squeeze my eyes shut. Sounds of the boots moving once again caused my eyes to open. More shots were fired.

My eyes were sore and wet from my tears leaking down my cheeks. I didn't want to die.

I didn't want to die.

I very nearly screamed when I saw another pair of shoes creeping up behind the boots. They were an older pair of well worn tennis shoes and I was scared for the person wearing them.

"Hey, that's enough," a man's voice said. It would have sounded brave, had it not been for the slight quiver heard throughout his sentence.

Boots turned around, and another shot was rung. The old, tattered tennis shoes flopped backwards. A sharp blow was heard as the body made contact with a table behind him, and I watched the shoes as they dangled in midair.

A loud wail of a cry was heard and the boots moved towards the sound. Moments after the boots vanished behind a counter, the screeching of a table being pushed aside bounced off the wall, rendering me frozen. The girl's cried continued on, but I was unable to see anything.

"Why?" she cried.

The gun was prepared to fire, a loose bullet falling to the hard ground. Seconds of deathly quiet silence followed. A final shot was heard all around the library, and it was now my turn to cry out.

I awoke with a start. My body was in a light sweat and my heart was pounding in my chest.

I gazed up at the ceiling, my breathing rate slowly returning to normal.

That was when I heard the creaks of the floorboards. I closed my eyes.

Slowly turning my head to the side in order to not make any noticeable movement, I peeked out from under my eyelashes only to notice my dad was missing.

I fully opened my eyes, somewhat less frightened of the possibility of an intruder, and stood up.

My brother, Connor, was still fast asleep. If what he was doing could actually be described as such. His arms and legs were sprawled out at odd angles, his body half in his sleeping back, half on the floor, with his mouth wide open for all the world to see.

I chuckled before looking away in disgust.

"Dad?" I called out.

A flickering light could be seen from the kitchen and I walked towards it. When I entered, I saw the last thing I ever expected to see.

My dad was holding his hand just barely above the stove, the flames almost licking his palm.

"DAD!" I screamed. I ran towards him and he swiftly removed his hand from the frightening scene. "What the hell were you doing?"

He blinked slowly, his eyes eventually gaining focus. "Huh? Oh." He looked down at the stove. "Oh!" He speedily reached for the gas knob, effectively stopping any the flames trying to break free from beneath the iron stove-top bars.

"Dad? Are you okay?" I was super freaked out, my heart now pounding harder than it had been from my dream.

Shaking his head, he finally seemed to come back to reality.

He swallowed and wet his lips. "Yes, I'm fine. I was just going to heat up some water for tea, but… I left my glasses… near my pillow…and I guess I wasn't paying any attention to the whereabouts of my hand…" he trailed off.

"Why were you making tea? At," I shifted my gaze to the time on the stove, "3:24 in the morning?"

My dad shrugged. "Sounded good. Besides, it's not uncommon of me. I used to do it almost every morning, you just didn't notice before. What woke you up?"

Still shaken from the whole experience, I whispered, "Nightmare."

"Would you like me to fix you up some tea as well? Help calm your mind?"

I shook my head. "No. I'll just go back to bed. I'm starting to feel more tired now." And I was. All of this action both asleep and awake was draining my brainpower.

"Oh, okay. Well, goodnight Ev."

"Night." I walked back out into the dark living room. Connor hadn't moved much and I rolled my eyes before going back into my sleeping bag. The leftover warmth felt good when compared to the ice cold wood flooring surrounding the house.

I settled my head down against the soft pillow and closed my eyes.

The floorboards creaked.

Well, I hope you liked it. :) I loved this show and I was so upset/stunned at how the whole show ended. It was an amazing season.

Should I continue? Let me know. :)

-Natasha