In Which A Real Estate Agent Tells Ghost Stories

The room they stepped into was plain: dark grey walls, light grey desk, and sparse white decals. Sitting behind the desk was a woman, her lips twisted into the semblance of a welcoming smile.

"Good morning," She stood up, gesturing to the single chair in front of her desk. "You must be Mrs. Manson."

Sam nodded, shaking the woman's outstretched hand before sitting down, positioning her daughter in her lap, "Yes, and this little one is Mackenzie."

"Mack," The girl muttered, too low for the woman too hear.

"What a pretty name!" She sat back behind her desk, somehow managing to sit despite her rigid pencil skirt. "How old are you, Mackenzie?"

Mackenzie—Mack—hid her face in her mother's sweater, sticking up eight of her stocky fingers.

"Almost a lady, then," The woman placed a file on the desk and flipped it opening, thumbing through and pulling out a stack of papers. "After we last spoke on the phone, I managed to make a list of all the Amity homes falling within your budget." She spread out the images, four in total, and began pointing to them individually.

"This one's quite old," The one she pointed to looked ancient, a low-lying bungalow with whitewashed outer walls. "But has a very sturdy foundation. Given time and work, it could be up to living standards in no time."

"Living standards?" Sam inquired, leaning forward so Mack could closely investigate the picture.

"The previous owner was a ninety-year-old woman who sold to move out to a warmer climate. Arthritis, poor soul."

Sam nodded in, hoping the action held more sympathy then she was feeling.

"Because of her age, she didn't work much on it. There's multiple leaks and an issue with the plumbing, as well as the basement being unfinished, but it's located in a wonderful neighborhood." She pulled out some interior photos, "Right next to an elementary school, too."

Her daughter, finished examining the photos, yanked softly on her worn sweater sleeve, shaking her head minutely.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Baxter, but we're looking for something we can move into right away. Renovations just aren't in the money scheme for us."

The woman nodded her understanding, blonde hair bobbing precariously at the top of her head where it was pinned, "The next one is in practically perfect condition; nearly brand new by Amity standards."

It was truly a beautiful house, pale yellow siding with white trim and trough. The lawn out front was riddled with wildflowers and long grass, a small maple tree bearing large leaves towards the sun. The interior photos were even better.

It was perfect. Too perfect.

Just by looking at it Sam could tell it exceeded their low, practically non-existent, budget. "How much?"

The woman pointed to the home's file and Sam's eyes bulged. It was astronomically out of their price rang. Not too bad by normal financial standards, but way out of hers.

"It's a bit out of our price range," She tried not to squirm as the words left her mouth, eyeing the expensive pearls around the real estate agent's neck warily. "And by a bit I mean a lot."

The woman paused, the business-like mask falling away from her face. "Can I be real with you, Mrs. Manson?"

"Call me Sam, and of course you can."

"Alright Sam, this is one of the cheapest one's we have on file. I can't see you purchasing anything like what you're looking for with your current budget." She sighed, rubbing at her forehead before slipping the pictures back into their file, "I really am sorry, but there's nothing I can do."

The ebony glanced down at her daughter and felt her heart constrict at the broken look on the girl's face. Her blue eyes were staring hopelessly at the closed file, tiny crystalline tears forming in their depths.

Mack needed this, needed stability. Sam couldn't drag her from apartment to apartment, never having a place to truly call home.

Placing her arm determinedly on the desk, she fixed her gaze on the Baxter woman's face, scrutinizing every inch of it.

Just as the woman began to look uncomfortable, Sam spoke,

"Look, we really want to make things work here. I recently got out of a very messy divorce and we just want to start over, but I can't do that if I don't have somewhere to settle down. So please, is there anything you might have missed? Anything you might be leaving out?"

The woman hesitated, the wrinkles on her face becoming more prominent the longer she warred internally. "Well, there is one that we don't even advertise anymore. It's been on file for so long but…" She slid back in her chair and opened one of the drawers closest to the floor, pulling out a single paperclipped stack of photos. "These are the most recent ones; taken about three years ago, I think."

(Quick A/N: I'll be changing the Fenton Works design a tiny bit to work with the story, sorry not sorry :p)

Curious, Sam picked up the stack and carefully examined them. It was a two-story red brick house with six large windows, boarded up from the inside, on the front exterior. Dark vines laced across the brick, something that looked like flowers blooming amongst their foliage.

The lawn was unkempt and the grass wild, riddled with weeds, while the cracked drive leading up to the house betrayed its age. There were a few trees popping up on the houses left in what looked like the ruins of the next-door house, its foundations barely visible among the literal forest that seemed to be growing over it.

"What happened to the next-door neighbours?" Sam inquired curiously, passing the photo to Mack so she could look at it.

Mrs. Baxter fiddled nervously with one of her monogramed pens, paying no mind to the ink coating her fingertips. "They moved soon after the initial owners…left."

Alarm bells began to ring in the back of Sam's brain, their sound echoing throughout her skull. That newest fact, coupled with Mrs. Baxter's suspicious behaviour, was enough for her writer's curiosity to pique. "What do you mean 'left'?"

Accepting the inevitable, the woman sighed, "The previous owners were scientists, invested in the exploration of the paranormal."

Sam nodded her understanding, trying to prompt the woman.

"Sixteen years ago, we can only guess there was some kind of accident. The entire family disappeared."

The ebony's eyes widened considerably at this news, "Care to explain?"

"I can't," She shook her head. "No one knows what happened. Their neighbours, at the time, reported an explosion of sorts. That wasn't abnormal for them, actually, who knows what went on in that house, but there was something more." Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper, "Wailing."

Sam arched a dark brow skeptically, "Wailing."

"I lived two houses down, dear, trust me. There was definitely wailing." Her tone was serious, grim. Sam couldn't help but find herself believing it. "By the time the police arrived there was no sign of any of them. Just an empty house."

There was still something she didn't understand, something that wasn't adding up. "Why didn't anyone buy it, then? If this all happened sixteen years ago, what's the catch?"

"Ah," The woman shifted, casting a cautious eye to the young girl who was listening eagerly from her mother's lap. "Once the building code restrictions had been enforced and the…structure removed from the top, we put the house on the market."

"Structures?" Sam glanced at the photograph, "I don't see any structures on top. Just a normal roof." There was indeed only a normal roof, covered in faded, smoky gray shingles.

"The previous owners, because of their peculiar hobby, had put multiple unsanctioned structures of unknown purpose on the top of their home, none of which followed Amity regulation." A bemused smile twisted the corner of her lips, her eyes glazing over as if she were recalling something. "I don't know how they got away with it; they were certainly a family to be reckoned with."

"Did you know them personally?" Sam asked softly, hoping her question wasn't too personal.

"Everyone knew them personally," The smile faded somewhat, "No one knows how long they lived there, but they were a part of Amity. My son went to school with their youngest; he was absolutely broken by his death."

"You said death that time, not disappearance."

"It is assumed that they passed in the explosion, for no one saw them leave and their assault vehicle was still in the garage."

Sam's mind was temporary snagged by the woman's casual mention of an assault vehicle, but decided not to dwell on it. "What happened when you sold the house?"

The woman winced, "I organized for a team to gut the house as the previous owners' had no close family willing to do so, but they ran out screaming." She met Sam's eyes with her own. "They claimed the house was haunted."

The younger woman didn't need to voice her disbelief for the other to see it. "And you're certain they weren't just pulling a prank?"

"I don't know what it is they saw. Every team I sent in after that reported the same thing: floating objects, glowing eyes, horrible screams. Whether it was true or not, word quickly spread that the house's previous inhabitants had never left, that they're paranormal deaths lead to the town's awakening."

This was all starting to sound a little too horror-esque to Sam, "Awakening?"

Mrs. Baxter looked surprised, shocked even, "So you haven't seen any yet?"

All these questions where beginning to wear on Sam's tired mind; she just wanted a house. "Seen any what?"

"Nothing," Mrs. Baxter murmured in a tone that very much implied the opposite. "Amity just has different pests then other small towns. A little more exotic, shall we say."

Had this woman been hitting the happy brownies? Because hallucinogens were the only plausible explanation for this wild narrative. "I'll buy it."

The woman's tongue practically fell out of her mouth in her shock, "But I just told you—"

"For such a haunted house, you'll be lowering the prize considerably, right?" To be clear, Sam believed in no such thing as ghosts. Whatever those moving workers had seen wasn't supernatural or occult, but if their ridiculous fantasies lowered the price…

"I mean, this house has probably been a thorn in your side for awhile now, sixteen years is a long time."

Mrs. Baxter nodded her head, eyeing the dusty file with a look of disgust. "Once the story spread that it was haunted, no one wanted to live near it, let alone in it. When the next-door neighbours moved across town, that was the last straw."

Perfect. "So how about I take it off your hands for, I don't know, say half of my original budget?"

At the mention of money, the shrewd glint from earlier was back in the woman's gaze, "Full budget."

"Three fourths, take it or leave it."

Without hesitating the woman smiled, revealing gleaming teeth, "Deal."

They shook on it, Mack excitedly holding the file to her chest, "Do we have a house now, momma?"

"We most certainly do," Sam scooped her up, ignoring the way the tutu fanned out around her. "Do you want to come with us to open it up?" She asked the real estate woman.

Mrs. Baxter paled considerably and shook her head, pulling out the key and quickly passing it to her, "That won't be necessary, I assume you'll send me the money?"

"Correct." Sam opened the door, staring at the stylized 'F' engraved on the key's head, "What does the 'F' stand for?"

The woman's victorious smile drooped somewhat in the corners, "Fenton. It was their last name."

After a short pause where Sam figured there was something she was supposed to say in this scenario, something appropriate, she settled for a simple, "Uh, thanks," and hightailed it out of there.

As the door closed behind the mother and daughter, Mrs. Baxter eased herself back into the chair without taking her eyes off the closed door. "Good luck in Amity, Sam. You'll need it."

Oblivious to the woman's advice, the two exited the building and headed towards the beaten-up Volkswagen, massive smiles on both of their faces.

For their story had just truly begun.

Thanks for reading :)

~ASL