A/N Here's another one I pulled from the vault that happens to be my website, lol. This was written sometime in 99-00, I think. Anyways, it was written for a girl -Renee- off of the Goddess' Boudoir board back when I used UndertakersWoman as my penname, how freaking original was I? LOL

1

Renee looked up at the haunted house. Even in the morning light it looked forbidding and scary. She braced her shoulders and walked up the creaky steps to the porch then pushed open the door and went inside.

The room was lit by a chandelier, cobwebs hanging from it. Along one wall was a mirror. Renee looked in it, gasping at the reflection. It wasnt her. It was a man. A man that stood almost seven feet tall with long red hair and piercing green eyes. He stared at her from the mirror, cocking his head to the side.

Renee glanced over her shoulder nervously, before raising a hand to touch the mirrors surface. The man raised his hand too.

"Renee?"

Renee jumped back.

He smiled. "I'm Mark, the co-owner."

Now she blushed furiously, feeling like an idiot for being scared of a trick. "Hello. You startled me."

"Sorry." Mark disappeared from sight, reemerging again from behind a panel. "It's nice to finally meet you." He held out his hand.

Renee took it with a smile. "Pleasure."

"Did Paul mention the problem to you?" Mark frowned. "He didn't tell me anythin, just said it needed to be fixed immediately."

"Well the park does open in a weeks time." Renee pointed out.

"I'm aware of that."

"I don't know what the problem is either."

"Damn." Mark ran a hand through his hair. "I guess we'll just have to find out what it is on our own. Leave it to Paul to be elusive."

Renee walked around the room, looking it over. "So you have no idea if its a mechanical problem or just something simple?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe we should look around a bit and if we can't find anythin we'll go talk to Paul."

"Okay." Renee set her purse down on a small black stand then quickly lifted it up again. "Agh!"

Mark looked over at her, raising his eyebrows. "What?"

She showed him the bottom of her purse, it was stained in dark red ooze. "What is this?"

He crossed over and felt the stand. "It feels like normal wood to me."

"Press down."

Mark did. The red ooze bubbled up between his fingers. "Just a trick."

"Oh that's gross." She looked around for something to wipe the purse off with.

Mark handed her a bandanna from his back pocket. "I think its kind of neat." He raised a finger up to his nose and sniffed it then tentatively touched his tongue to the blood. "Its real."

"What?"

"It's real blood." Mark wiped his hand off on his jeans. "Somehow I dont think thats allowed."

"Paul doesnt seem to be the type of person to follow rules though."

"No, he's not."

Renee looked towards the hallway. "Lets get on with this, shall we?"

He led the way going down the gloomy hall, there was no more light since the windows had all been boarded up. "This was definitely the right place for a haunted house." He commented, ducking under a cobweb.

Renee shuddered as a large spider scurried up into the corner of the web. She jumped when she felt something touch her shoulder. "What was that?"

"What was what?" Mark stopped and turned around.

"Something just..." She trailed off as his eyebrows raised.

"Renee, this is just an attraction in a theme park. Nothin more." He assured her with a slight smile.

She smiled back weakly.

They continued on until the next room, a kitchen. Knives adorned the walls, trails of blood flowing down the walls under the blade points. An old black stove sat against one wall while the rest were lined with charcoal burnt counters, shattered glass covering them along with black ooze. More cobwebs hung from the ceiling, which also meant more spiders.

"These spiders aren't poisonous are they?" Renee asked with a frown. "I'd really hate for a patron to get bitten and then die or something."

Mark took a closer look at them. "No, I dont think so. Looks like a regular spider to me. We could always bring in some tarantulas."

"Maybe if they're in a glass cage or something."

"Speakin of glass, Paul told me the entire basement floor was nothin but a thick pane of glass."

"Good. We can put something under it to frighten people with. Maybe snakes."

"That'd be good." Mark looked over at doorway. That door is supposed to lead upstairs and then the last room upstairs comes back downstairs and then its into the basement which has the exit.

"How do you know all this?" she asked.

"Paul."

"He never told me."

"Well Paul generally doesn't tell anyone much of anythin."

Renee shook her head with a sigh. "Thats true."

They made their way upstairs. Halfway up, Marks foot disappeared in one step.

"Holy shit!" he exclaimed, bracing his hands on either side of the wall so he wouldn't topple backwards onto her.

Renee stifled a giggle. "Looks like this needs to be fixed."

"Yes... Slightly." He tugged at his leg until it came free. "Thats a damn lawsuit waitin to happen."

Renee took a small notebook and pen from her back pocket. "Fix stair." She said as she wrote it down.

"I'm glad one of us is organized." He grinned.

"So am I. Shall we continue?"

Once upstairs, they walked right into a large spiders web.

"Oh God! Its in my hair!" Renee screamed, frantically running her hands through her hair.

"It's just webs."

"Not that! The spider!"

"Oh..." Mark reached over and gently pulled the spider out of her hair. "You're scared of spiders?" He held it up to her face.

Renee made a face. "No, I just don't like them. They're gross."

"We can just kill them all and use plastic ones." He offered.

"No, real are better. As long as the little buggers keep the hell out of my hair!"

Mark looked around the room. There was a dusty old fashioned four poster bed against one wall, taking up a good deal of the floor. An old shaggy curtain hung around it. He walked over to it and pulled the curtain back.

Laying on the bed, underneath the covers was a man in pajamas, a knife in his chest and blood oozing from the wound.

"That looks so realistic." Renee murmured, coming up beside Mark. She reached her hand out to touch it. "Feels real too."

"Ever felt a dead guy before?"

"No and I'm not in any hurry too either."

"Just wonderin."

They continued on, finally coming to the last room. The black walls were covered in graffiti.

"I think we've found our problem." Renee muttered, reading some of the writing. She jotted down something on her note pad.

"This way to the basement." Mark walked through the beaded doorway.

They carefully made their way down the dark steps into the dank basement. Mark fumbled along the wall until he found a switch and flicked it on. The basement was rather normal looking, concrete walls, more spiders the like. The only thing unusual was the thick glass floor.

"Snakes definitely." Mark said enthusiastically.

"Add a skeleton too."

Mark and Renee went outside after inspecting the basement, the bright sunlight a welcome relief to the dark house.

Renee glanced down at her pad. "I'll get the graffiti taken care of. You can have the snakes. Oh, and the step, I'll make sure that gets fixed. Wouldnt want anyone else putting a foot through it now would we?" She snickered.

Mark made a pained face. "Thanks for the reminder."

"How'd it go?"

They turned to find Paul standing there, clad in his normal black suit.

"Smoothly."

Paul smiled, clasping his hands together in front of him. "Good good. I'm having the power reconnected tonight and my engineers are going to run a few more test runs on the mechanics. They got to finish up with the lights and stuff."

Renee frowned. "I didnt notice anything mechanical."

"Did you happen to spot the extra dark spots in the walls and floors?"

"Well yeah," she admitted. "But I thought those might be shadows or water stains."

"No. There are little odds and ends that pop up in those areas. You'll love it, I promise."