A/N: Written in the same vein as "Once Upon Another Life," this series of one-shots shift the timeline to their first night in the house. They are all meant to stand alone and can be read as such, but a couple of them may make brief mention to something I may have alluded to in "Once Upon Another Life." The ordering of the chapters are different (aka, Pam was chapter one in OUAL, but Rachel is chapter one here). I've been toying with the idea of making a third series of one-shots set the morning after they escape (I think that's a Sunday), but nothing concrete has been started yet. The chapters here run about the same length; I tried to stay between 600-700 words. As with OUAL, new chapters will be posted every Friday.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters or ideas created by Stephen King. I borrowed them for the entertainment and amusement of my audience.

SUMMARY: When one door closes, does another really open?

GENRE: Horror

RATING: PG-13

DATE: August 22, 2013

::~*~::

Rachel closed the door behind her and Annie, the bedside lamps barely illuminating the massive room. Joyce had personally escorted them to their room, taking delight in showing them many of the amenities of their room, and, if Rachel didn't know any better, she felt certain that Joyce had given them to the nicest room of the lot. She looked around uncertainly, her adrenaline having been pumping full steam since she had entered the house seven hours earlier. Mildly impressed with the opulent luxury in evidence everywhere, she wished the very environment of the house wasn't so terrifying that she could actually take some time to appreciate it.

Spying a small switch on the wall next to the door, she assumed, because of its position, that it would light up the chandelier in the center of the room. The thought of using caution when pushing buttons and flipping switches in a proven haunted house not occurring to her in her exhausted state of mind, she flipped the switch to bring more illumination into the room. Her assumption correct, the chandelier blazed to life…before several bulbs promptly burst from the sudden onslaught of electricity to their ancient wires. Rachel gasped in shock, pressing her back against the door of the room, ready to grab Annie and bolt if anything even remotely supernatural started happening. After several bulbs had literally exploded, the chandelier finally went dark, plunging the room back into its semi-gloom of earlier. Surprisingly, the bedside lamps remained lit and, for that, Rachel was grateful. She didn't think she could handle any of this ghostly phenomena without the others around.

It was one thing when it was just Annie causing things to happen. Having lived with her since the day she was born, Rachel had grown used to expecting strange things when it came to Annie. Granted, Annie could still scare her half to death on occasion, especially when Rachel was unprepared, but, for the most part, Rachel understood Annie on a level that most people didn't, and that allowed her to always be on her guard when things started getting a little weird.

It was a completely different thing when Annie wasn't the only psychic variable anymore. Now there were five other individuals (six if Nick's insinuations about Steve were correct), that could power the house's psychic field, and the house… Rachel didn't want to think about the nature of the house any more than necessary. It was very clear that it lived and acted of its own accord. Even with Rachel's acceptance of Annie's gifts in a world of narrow-minded and grounded individuals, she still couldn't wrap her head around a sentient house. If a house could be said to think and exist in a conscious state, what else was possible? Perhaps an easier question was what wasn't possible?

Shaking herself out of her thoughts, she looked around for Annie. Rachel smiled in spite of the oppressive atmosphere of the house. Annie was seated happily on the large king-sized bed, playing with her dolls. Rachel's smile faded as she saw Annie playing with the new one that she had found in the carriage only a short time ago. Annie had immediately adopted it as her own. Just the very sight of the doll gave her the creeps. Joyce hadn't said anything about it—maybe she didn't even know—but Rachel suspected the doll once belonged to April Rimbauer, the six-year-old girl who had vanished from the kitchen so many years ago. At least, the ghostly figure that had shown up within minutes of Annie claiming the doll looked like the young girl.

Rachel really didn't want to sleep with the doll in the room, but she suspected Annie would throw a massive fit if the doll were taken away. She shrugged her shoulders, the gesture lost on the only other occupant of the room. She was spending the night in a haunted house; the creepy doll was really the least of her worries. It was going to be a long night any way she looked at it.