Chapter 2: The Drive to "Hell" and The First Night
The Day of the drive to Hell House finally came, that seemingly ordinary Friday evening. All around, the 9 kids all had mixed feelings about it. For one, the chilling words of Prof. Snyder rang in there ears loud and clear, so, there was nervousness. However, at the same time, you could say, there was also a bit of excitement. While all of them had been in some crazy situations in the past, primarily when they were younger, none of them ever had to deal with a haunted house and possible malevolent ghosts. So, with this mix of emotions, Stan, Kyle, Wendy and company all readied themselves for the weekend at Hell House. In order to not have too many cars parked near it, Prof. Snyder advised everyone to group together in different cars. Butters, Pip, and Tweek rode in one car, Clyde, Craig, and Token rode in a second one, Kyle rode alone, under pressure from his mother, saying he needed full concentration on the road, and that he didn't need anyone distracting him while he drove (Even with Kyle as a teen, his mom was still a nag). So, much to the chagrin of Stan, he had to take Wendy with him in his car.
The ride there, for the most part, was deathly quiet. Every so often, Wendy would clear her throat, and Stan would exhale, but other then that, no sound escaped past their mouths. Finally, about 25 minutes into the ride, Wendy was the first to speak.
"Do you mind if I change the radio station?"
For the whole ride, Stan had been listening to loud rock music from a local radio station, something Wendy really wasn't into at all. (At heart, she was a lover of classical music.)
"My car…my radio station…" Stan snarled at Wendy, drawing a look of scorn from her as a result.
"Who died and left you king huh?" Wendy asked, eyeballing Stan angrily as she did.
Stan shot back at Wendy and was about to speak, but, knowing it would lead to a heated argument, and wanting to not cause an accident on the road, he bit his tongue and kept on driving in silence.
"I swear, you've been nothing but a bitter jerkoff ever since we were in the 4th grade.." Wendy muttered under her breath, but Stan heard her quite well.
Yes, 4th grade, the second time that Wendy officially broke up with Stan (For Token this time). It was after that time that Stan simply and bitterly gave up on Wendy and watched her go back to Gregory, whom she was with to this day. Gritting his teeth angrily, Stan sighed and shook his head.
"If you have something to say, just say it…"
Wendy must have obviously caught Stan's annoyed look in the mirror or out of the corner of her eye somehow, and she was now putting him on the spot. Once again, Stan kept to himself, knowing that once he set off, he wouldn't stop going until the car either crashed, or he strangled Wendy to death.
"Nothing to say huh?" Wendy scoffed with a small little smirk, "I figured that much…"
Boy, was this going to be a long weekend for Stan.
At around 6:00 in the evening, Stan and Wendy finally got to the house. The rest of the gang were already there, waiting for them in front of the house. The exterior of it, for all intents and purposes, was like pretty much any house you would see if you were to go back in time to the Victorian period in London. Large, stone like columns at the front door, elegant looking stain-glass windows, hanging arches, the works. As Stan and Wendy approached the others, Kyle was the first to speak.
"This is all of us it seems…"
"But what about Professor Snyder?" Butters asked. "He hasn't come yet…should we wait for him?"
"He might be inside Leo, you never know..." Wendy said, looking at the door to the house up and down as she did. "Why don't we find out hmm?"
With that bit of logic in mind, off the 9 of them went inside, as the door was surprisingly unlocked.
The inside of the house was pretty much the same as the outside of the house design wise, elegant, large, looming, and old. As the kids slowly looked around at the interior, Stan, marveling at what he saw, whistled slowly.
"Jesus man, who would wanna go crazy and kill people in a place like this? It looks great!"
Once again, Wendy shot Stan a dirty look and sighed.
"Nice of you to make a comment like that given the circumstances Stan…"
Stan frowned and was about to comment back, when Kyle's words got his attention, as well as everyone else's.
"Hey look! The kitchen's all lit up, and there's food on the table!"
"Hot damn! And I'm starving too!" Clyde spoke up, licking his lips and rubbing his hands as he did. "Let's eat!"
The kids ventured into the kitchen. Sure enough, as Kyle said, there was food to be served. In all, there were 10 plates of it set up, 9, of course, for them, and a 10th, presumably, for Prof. Snyder.
"Look, there's a note…." Tweek piped up, the first thing he had said since they arrived. Grabbing the note, he opened it up and read aloud. "Kids, I may be an hour or two late getting too the house, until then, make yourselves at home and have some dinner, my treat. Regards, Professor Snyder."
"It would be rude of us to not wait for him, don't you think guys?" Wendy asked as she slowly sat down in one of the chairs, Butters to her left, Token to her right as she did.
"Hey, it says here we can eat, he's giving us permission isn't he?" Clyde said, taking a seat next to Token.
Wendy could only shrug, so, with no other objections, the kids began to eat. Before them they had steak, mashed potatoes, and a few dinner rolls to eat, and everyone heartily had their fill and talked amongst themselves for the next 20 minutes. Craig, the first one to finish after that time, slowly stood up, let out a loud burp, then smiled and patted his stomach slowly.
"Ah, delicious….now for an after dinner cigarette…I'll be right back…."
With that, he left the room and ventured towards a large hall way that led to a sliding glass door. Opening up the door and stepping out, he found himself in a garden area. Smiling, he took out a pack of cigarettes, took a single one from the pack, put it too his lips, and lit up a match, and later the cigarette. As he puffed on it and exhaled some smoke. A scuttling noise in the garden got his attention.
"Anyone there?" Craig asked rather nonchalantly. Hearing no response, he shrugged and went back to smoking. However, the noise again drew his attention towards the garden. Unlike the first time though, this time the source of the noise showed itself in the form of a medium sized German Shepard. Craig, a dog lover from his youth, smiled at this and kneeled down to the dog, who slowly was sniffing a path up to Craig.
"Heh, hey there dude….You a stray or something?" He began, smiling as he did. "Cause I don't think any dog with an owner would want to live anywhere near a haunted shit hole like this…"
The dog slowly stopped his sniffing and stared long and hard at Craig, most notably, Craig's neck. The dog's tongue slowly came out from its mouth and he licked his chops gently, as if sizing up a potential meal. Oblivious to all of this, Craig continued to smile and speak to the dog.
"You got a name or something?" He began, but after a pause, he thought a moment and laughed. "Wait, you're a dog, dog's can't talk…duh…."
As Craig chuckled and attempted to par the dog on the head, it reared back and snapped at Craig. Craig instantly pulled his hand back to his side. Had he not, the dog would have bitten three of Craig's fingers clean off.
"Jesus Christ dude! What the hell did I do to deserve that huh?" Craig asked, panting a bit as he did and holding his hand, not that it was hurt in any way, just the fact that it was a close call of almost being bitten.
Slowly, the dog growled and went into a pounce ready crouch, baring his teeth at Craig and barking at him the whole time. It was obvious that this wasn't the friendliest of dogs in the town, or the world for that matter.
"Oh? And just what the hell do you think you're gonna huh tough guy?" Craig snarled at the dog, flicking his cigarette away and eyeing the dog directly as he did.
In the span of just a few seconds, the dog leapt from its crouching position and sank its teeth deeply into Craig's neck. Too surprised and horrified to react, Craig's eyes simply widened in horror and his mouth opened up to scream, but only a gurgled wheeze escaped. The dog clamped onto his neck further and deeper, not relenting even for a second. After several seconds of spasms going through his body, Craig stiffened up, then slowly collapsed face down to the floor, dead. The dog, as if nothing happened, simply backed away a few steps, ate up the meat from Craig's neck silently, then snorted a bit in satisfaction. Inside the house, an old grandfather clock began to chime its bells, signaling that it was seven o'clock. With this rather convenient noise, the dog was able to drag off Craig's body with his teeth by his hair to the further outside area of the back yard. There wouldn't be much left of Craig when the dog was finished with him and when the police eventually stumbled upon him.
1 down, 8 to go.
Meanwhile, with all of this going on, the kids were now finishing up their meal, still with no sign of arrival from Prof. Snyder.
"Jesus, how long does it take to smoke a fucking cigarette huh?" Stan mumbled to himself, taking the last bite of his steak as he did.
"I don't really think that's the important question right now Stan…" Kyle began, gathering up the plates for everyone and putting them in a pile in the center of the table. "…What I'd like to know is, where's Professor Snyder? He was so hell bent on us getting here for this project, and he has yet to show up."
"Well, like the note said, he's going to be a bit late…" Pip said, taking off his cap and brushing his hair back with his hand once as he did. "So why don't we just get our things into our rooms and relax for a bit. We'll worry about him if he's not here in the morning."
"For once Pip, you make a good suggestion." Stan snorted with a laugh. "Come on guys, let Craig find a spare room by himself. Let's get upstairs and settled in."
And so, without any thought given to where Craig might be, or who might be chowing down on him in anyway, the kids all exited the kitchen and towards a large staircase which led to upstairs bedrooms. Unknown to all of them, this would be just the beginning of a violent, terrifying weekend for them.