A couple of teenagers came by the house on this Halloween night. It was the typical "I dare you to do this" situation. The kind of kids who don't realize that signs are there for a reason.
"C'mon, you said you could do it. Go for it, no one can see you." A girl with short blonde hair accused. She pushed a boy towards the house. "Do it!" She called after him.
"Lisa… it's Halloween, I didn't say I could do it on Halloween. " He looked back to her pleadingly.
"What makes this night different from any other in the year? You're so superstitious Chad. You want me to go with and hold your hand?" Lisa chided as she outstretched her hand. It wasn't a loving gesture, it signified mocking him to say his fear was childish.
"We all know the story Lisa, on this night "they" are supposed to come out, from this house. Every year someone stupid enough to ignore the sign goes in… and they either disappear for days only to come back insane, or they never return."
"Oh please, the history teachers tell us that story just to make fun and discourage us from going in. None of it is true. Now get going." She shoved again.
Chad examined the door and nervously swallowed. He didn't know what could be in that house now, but every instinct in his brain told him to do the opposite of what he was going to do next. There could be skeletons, bloody knives, zombies, corpses with maggots, anything of such repulsive nature. Step by step he got closer to the house.
Lisa watched the boy with shoulder length brown hair open the door tentatively. She too wasn't entirely sure what he would find in there, but she wasn't going in. It was amusing to watch him though, surely he wouldn't get hurt or anything. The stories were all they were, just stories… right?
There didn't seem to be anything of particular interest in the house. An old couch covered in dust, a glass coffee table hardly distinguishable as glass, rugs in dire need of beating, and other mundane objects. Though there remained an air in the old place that made one wish they could leave as soon as possible. He shook his head to clear the thoughts, "I'm not scared, they're just stories… just stories."
A creek reached his ears from in the next room. His eyes were darting around the room in a panicked manner. Something made a noise like a large frog behind him. Chad tensed up and spun to look back at the door. Wrapped in green pond plants was a creature with fanned gills and glowing yellow eyes standing in the doorway. He screamed and ran unthinking into the room the creek came from.
That room was a kitchen with utensils and dishes lining the walls. Among these utensils were knives dripping a suspicious dark substance off them. Chad backed up to the wall opposite the one with knives. To his left stood a refrigerator and a stove to his right. With the rise and fall of his chest he could hear his own pulse as it sped up. Suspicious as he was, he believed something would crawl out from behind the stove. He eyed it as if the stove itself would jump up and grab him. The boy didn't know how wrong he would find himself. A hand fell on his shoulder and spun him. Facing him existed a massive man in overalls with an ax sticking out of his head. The man wielded one of the liquid covered knives from the wall and raised it to strike.
Chad reacted in just enough time to dodge the blow and dart into a doorway he had not yet been through. In here the place seemed empty. Nothing adorned this room. It had a floor, four walls, and a ceiling, nothing else. From the floor, nothing crept or moved anywhere. If he could just find a window or something, he could escape the other monsters following him.
Suddenly, someone started laughing maniacally. Chad's eyes darted about the room again. He felt like razorblades were tearing his stomach apart with fear. "What are you!" The boy built up the nerve to say.
It laughed at him again, but began its terrible recitation that echoed about the room in a cryptic harmony, "I'm the creature who frightens the dark, I'm the whiteness against a bloody wall…"
Chad plastered himself against the wall and shook with fear. His senses heightened in a desperate race to search for a way out. Animalistic instincts took hold of him in a struggle for survival, but his human fear still only allowed him to cower.
The voice continued, "…I'm the pumpkin king, I rule your fright…" It seemed to be closing in on him. Chad crawled to the center of the room to escape it. The presence inched closer and closer, "…no matter what I feel or how you look at me… I'll never do anything except…"
Fire struck on the floor in the shape of a spider web. It branched out to reveal he sat in the middle of it. There was no escaping now as the being descended upon him and pinned him to the floor. Its limbs spanned forever and it was so grotesquely skinny that he could see almost entirely around it. The boy was trapped like a fly in the clutches of the predator.
Its eyeless sockets peered directly into his soul and the firelight luminated a skeleton face. "…smile."
Chad's eyes widened and his mouth gaped in an attempt to call out. He could not force sound to come no matter how he beckoned. The boy shook in fright as more creatures surrounded him.
Outside, Lisa heard something from in the house. A horrible ragged sound she'd never expected. The noise sounded just like a boy screaming with voice cord ripping, blood curdling, pain. It drove her into anxiety as her disbelief hardly allowed her to comprehend Chad may be in trouble.
They were just stories… nothing more than stories. The house couldn't be that dangerous. Nothing ever happens in this town. They were just stories. If that were true, why would Chad be crying out in desperation?
A shape emerged from the house and hope flared in her chest. "Chad!" She called.
Whatever it was it came closer into the moonlight revealing that it couldn't be Chad. It was too tall, too skinny, and too pale. Plastered on its face was an enormous grin only attained by the dead. The last thing she could remember seeing in her last day of sanity was the smile.
