Once the footsteps died down, Ashley let out a silent sigh of relief. She turned around to see what room this was. She almost screamed. In the large, dark room were several candles placed around the room. In the middle of the room, sitting on a small platform, was a long, wooden coffin.
With curiosity nagging at the back of her head, Ashley couldn't help but approach it. She walked closer to the coffin. Just as she reached out to the coffin, a huge bat swooped down just inches from Ashley's face.
"AAAAAAAH!" Ashley finally let out that scream. She quickly cupped her hands over her mouth, but it was too late, a loud noise came from behind her, Ashley whirled around to see the robber break the door off the hinges. Before Ashley had a chance to react, the man tackled Ashley and pinned her to the hardwood floor. He pulled out his gun and held it high over his head ready to pistol whip Ashley. The poor red head braced herself. Suddenly, the bat swooped down again, only this time; it knocked the gun right out of the robber's hand. Startled, the thief turned his head.
"What the-" A gloved hand cut him off as it grabbed him by the throat. Ashley opened her eyes when she felt the robber lifted off of her. She saw the man being pulled into a dark corner of the room. It was too dark to see what was happening, but she was able to make out another figure was in the room. Ashley tried to stand, but her knees kept shaking so bad she sat back down. She watched the stranger pin the robber against the wall and lean closer to his ski-masked face. The robber uncorked a blood-curdling scream.
Ashley dug her face in her hands. She didn't want to look. When she heard a loud thud, she mustered enough courage to open her eyes. The thief was lying on the floor in a limp heap. Ashley gaped at the motionless body. The stranger looked down at his victim.
"AB negative, a unique bouquet." he purred. His voice was deep and smooth with a hint of a strange accent in it. He turned. Ashley let out a startled gasp. The man had black, spiky hair with a white streak on the right side. His skin was white as chalk. He wore a tuxedo with a red vest, white ruffle shirt, and a black bow tie. He had on black gloves, black dress shoes, and a black cape with red and yellow striped lining with a high collar. Hanging from his neck was a strange pendant with a purple neck ribbon.
Frightened and confused, Ashley sat there trying to make sense of all this as the man drew closer. His striking silver eyes observed the trembling girl.
"Oh I didn't forget about you, my darling little dessert." He hissed, revealing his fangs as he reached for Ashley. Charged with fear, Ashley bolted out of the room.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! VAMPIRE!" Ashley cried as she ran down the halls. She turned to see if the vampire was behind her, and then bumped into something that felt like a brick wall. Ashley tilted her head all the way up to see another monster. He was male, with brown frizzy hair, sunken eyes, as well as visible stitches all over his face. His body was tall with hulking muscles. He wore a gray turtleneck that stretched across his massive chest under a brown jacket, blue pants held up with a rope belt, and two metal bolts fixed into the temples of his head. He raised his huge hands up and towered over the terrified girl.
"RRRUUUUHHHAAAAAAAAAAA!" The monster let out a terrifying roar. Ashley fell backwards screaming over the thunderous roar and struggled back on her feet to get away. She kept running trying to the staircase when Ashley tripped. She found what looked like gauze tangling her feet.
"Aha! So YOU'RE the one making all that racket!" Ashley followed the trail of gauze to the owner of the voice. It was a mummy. Wrapped head to toe in bandages that were yellowed with age. He wore a golden neckpiece and wristbands. His face was a brown, dry, skeletal husk of what it used to be with only one blue eye in his right eye socket. Ashley didn't want to know how he lost the other one.
Standing next to the mummy was a werewolf. Wearing an unbuttoned orange jacket and brown pants. His toes were ripped out of his black and white sneakers. His gray fur bristled as he licked his fangs, dripping with saliva. The mummy stiffly raised his arms and slowly walked toward Ashley, moaning and growling while the werewolf snarled with his claws and teeth ready to pounce. Ashley's eyes grew in terror.
She tried to scramble away from the duo but bumped into someone else, the vampire and Franken-monster! Ashley ran down the hallway to find another way out. But she was at a dead end. She backed against the wall too scared to scream or run as the monsters drew closer. Growling, roaring, and laughing evilly as they reached for the girl. With no hope left in her heart, Ashley couldn't take it anymore.
The monsters just stood there. Shocked at what was happening before them. Ashley was curled against the wall with her hands buried in her face and crying. Out of sheer terror alone, Ashley was crying. As they heard the worst of her crying, the monsters all looked at each other feeling very ashamed.
"Well I hope you're all proud of yourselves!" a new voice said.
The monsters turned to see what looked like a man with glowing blue skin, an Elvis hairstyle, a clown-like nose and a long chin. Wearing a purple jacket with jewels embedded into it, a red cape, yellow fingerless gloves and matching scarf, funky patterned pants with an even funkier belt buckle, and shoes a clown at bowling night would wear. Altogether, this man looked like a living cartoon than anything else.
"Hey, we were just trying to scare here away!" the mummy said, speaking for the group.
The glowing blue man angrily put his hands in his hips. "No! All you did was torment that poor girl until she cried!"
Now the monsters felt even worse. The vampire looked back at the girl, her crying died down into small sobs. He carefully came to her side to comfort her. He placed his hand on her shoulder, causing Ashley to look up. Tears trickled down her face and her eyes were swelled.
"It's okay. We're not going to hurt you." the vampire said with true kindness in his voice. He pulled a handkerchief from his jacket pocket offering it to Ashley. She blinked through her tears, hesitating at first, but took the rag and wiped her eyes.
"We thought you were another squatter or antique collector again. We usually let them in, scare their pants off, end of story. We didn't mean to make you cry." the mummy explained.
Ashley was in complete disbelief. These monsters just wanted to scare her not hurt her? Well, they did apologize and looked pretty guilty. Strangely, the vampire looked the most guilty of them all.
"I-It's alright...I understand." Ashley sniffled. She didn't want to hurt their feelings, let alone offend them. She stared at the smiling blue man for a few seconds until he broke the silence.
"How'd you like some water?" He asked.
Ashley nodded. The blue man held out his hand, then an empty glass appeared in his palm and a floating pitcher of water poured water into the cup. Ashley watched in amazement. The man gave the red head the glass. "Your water, Mademoiselle." he said in a French accent.
"How did you do that?!" Ashley asked taking the glass.
"It all comes with being a phasm baby." he said with pride, slicking his hair back.
"Phasm? You mean, like a ghost?" Ashley asked nervously.
"Not just ANY ghost!" He spun around real fast and stopped to pose. "I'm the GHOST with the MOST to BOAST lil' miss!"
"Oh brother..." the mummy mumbled, rolling his one eye.
"Thank you. Thank you very much." the phasm belted in his best Elvis voice. "Thank you very much!"
Ashley giggled at this colorful character. She didn't feel afraid anymore.
The vampire smiled. "About time you started smiling my dear."
"Yeah..." Ashley said, turning to the vamp. The two smiled at each other for a while. The monsters just looked blank, shifting their eyes between the human girl and vampire as they kept staring into each others eyes, still smiling until a gunshot broke the moment. Ashley jumped, but the monsters jumped higher. They all hurried into a room and locked the door.
"OPEN UP!" a familiar voice yelled over loud banging on the door.
"Damien!" Ashley shouted.
"Who?" the phasm asked.
"But I though you killed him!" Ashley said to the vampire.
He shook his head. "No, I just drank some of his blood. I wanted to save room for you." he corrected.
"Well who is he?!" the mummy shouted.
"He's my ex-boyfriend. He tried to kill me at my work but I managed to get away and wanted to hide out here"
"KILL YOU?!" All the monsters exclaimed. Their look of shock was quickly replaced with anger. "Well, were not going to let him!" The phasm declared punching his fist in the air.
"What?! But he has a gun!" Ashley protested. the vampire rolled his eyes. "Oh please."
"You think guns scare us? Were ALREADY dead!" the mummy pointed out.
Ashley blinked. "...well, when you put it that way..."
"Just leave everything to us!" the phasm said with a wink. A few minutes later, Damien finally managed to mule-kick the door open. He saw Ashley standing in the middle of the room completely unfazed by his entrance. He removed his mask to reveal that he was no longer a well groomed man like he was; he was now an unrecognized animal. The jilted killer aimed his gun and smiled. His eyes had the killing intent of a madman.
"Finally. I'm going to have a lot of fun and you're going to be in a whole lot of pain." He waited to see his ex-girlfriend's reaction but Ashley remained emotionless. Angered by this, Damien fired several rounds at Ashley until there were no more rounds left. He stared and stared and stared.
Ashley was still standing, but there were several bullet holes all over the wall behind her. The shots went right through her body. Her lips curled into a wide smile. A purple smoke covered her body, when the smoke cleared, it was revealed it was the phasm who took the form of Ashley!
"Oooh, fire in the hole...NOT!" He laughed at his own bad joke.
Out of nowhere, Damien's gun was lassoed by the mummy using one of his bandages. "Didn't your mummy tell you about these things? "You'll put your eye out kid!'" he snickered.
There was a sudden whoosh, and Damien was pinned to the floor by the werewolf.
"AARRRROOOOOWW!" the beast howled. He gave Damien a few good tears to his shirt with his claws before getting off.
"I GOTTA GET OUT OF HERE!" Damien shrieked. But something grabbed him by the shirt collar, hoisting him in the air. The Franken-monster growled at Damien, who was stammering incoherently.
"RRRUUUUAAAAARRRR!" the monster roared in Damien's face and threw him to the floor. Damien got up and ran out of the room like a bullet until he was hoisted off the ground again by his belt, only this time the vampire had become a bat and began flying him around the house.
"PUT ME DOWN!" he demanded.
"My pleasure, bombs away!" the bat replied. He let Damien go, while still air-born, landing in the foyer with a painful THUD. As he got up, he gasped. Before him was a short figure with green, scaly hands wearing a brown cloak, her hood covered her entire face, all that was seen was a pair of red glowing eyes.
"Looks like you've had a nice visit." Her voice was sweet and high-pitched like a child's. "NOW GET OUT OF HERE!" She hollered in a not-so-sweet voice, she took off her hood, revealing a flurry of tentacles and other horrible things from her nightmarish face.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!" Damien screamed. He ran out of the house in complete, mindless terror. Ashley and the monsters watched to see police cruisers and cops arresting Damien outside.
"Hey! There are the cops!" the phasm pointed out.
Ashley nodded. "Yeah, while you guys were taking care of Damien, I used your phone and called them over...for your sakes." She said with a wink and smile.
"Here, they're going to need the evidence." the mummy said, giving the girl the gun. As Ashley was about to head out the door she stopped, looking back at the most unlikely heroes she's ever met. She gave them a warm smile. "Thank you. Thank you all."
"Oh, you don't have to thank us." said the bashful blue phasm.
"But seriously, feel free to thank us." the mummy insisted.
Ashley couldn't help but laugh. She finally stepped outside. As Damien was being taken in, Ashley looked back at the Hillhurst House. Lost in her thoughts about how this feeling of a special day became the night of an armed robbery of scorned rejection and nearly getting scared to death then rescued from death by real monsters.
Little did she know that the monsters were watching the girl, thinking the same thoughts.