Title: Haunted House
Genre: Horror/humor
Rating: T
Warnings: Mild Blood, mild language.
"Oo, I have a good one about this house!" Anna cheerfully exclaimed. "Did you know this place is haunted?"
Matt and Natalie each paled at the announcement, both thinking of the last time Anna had told a ghost story.
"Um, maybe Lance should start," Matt weakly tried.
"What, are you still scared of my last story?" Anna teased.
"Yes," Natalie replied, bluntly.
"Bunch of wimps—all of you," Anna huffed.
Lance scowled, "Hey, don't include me in that. I don't care if you tell another stupid story. The last one wasn't even that bad."
"Says the guy who was certain he was turning into a tree," Matt muttered. He shook his head, decisively and said, "Anna's too good. She's not allowed to tell ghost stories, anymore."
Anna rolled her eyes, and opened her mouth to begin telling her story, anyway, speaking over their protests. "Once upon a time, a young man moved his family into a small house in the middle of Ashwood. He was a hunter, and had always loved being surrounded by the trees."
"Sounds like a little girl we all know," Lance chuckled.
Anna flung a small branch from the kindling pile at him and kept talking. "The man had a wife, and a single daughter, only six years old, both of whom he loved very much. They were a happy family, and loved their small cottage."
"But then they all mysteriously died, the end." Natalie tried. Her skin was already prickling, and she did not want to hear the rest of Anna's tale.
"Probably got mauled by bears," Lance grunted as he reached behind him for a log to throw on the fire. He glanced back when his hand missed the stack, and he blinked in confusion when he saw the pile was a little further than he'd expected, but shrugged and leaned to get a knobby branch to toss on the flames.
"Guys, I never interrupt your stories, even if it's the fifth time I'm hearing the drunken retelling of our fight against Godcat, but you guys always interrupt mine," Anna complained, crossing her arms over her chest. "Is it too much to ask for the same courtesy I give you?"
Matt sighed in resignation and waved the beer can he had clutched in one hand. "Go ahead. We'll be quiet. Lance, you might as well get the pillow to catch Natz now."
"Har, har," Natalie muttered as she rubbed her arms, trying to alleviate the prickling feeling she was getting.
"Anyway, the family had been living in their new home for almost one whole year in peaceful happiness. But it all changed midway through the fall. It was the day of the fall harvest in Greenwood, and the husband headed off to purchase some fresh vegetables for dinner. He left behind his wife and daughter to bake some sweetcakes for desert, promising to bring back enough food for a small feast. He kissed their cheeks and left the cottage with his bow over his shoulder."
"Never to be seen again," Lance dramatically whispered under his breath to Matt. He smirked at the snort Matt gave.
Anna shot them a warning glare before being distracted by a flicker of movement in the doorway leading to the abandoned kitchen past him. Instantly, her bow was in her hand with an arrow on the string. Her sudden movement had the others tensing, and they twisted to look behind Lance, but saw nothing. After a few moments, Lance scowled and turned back to glare at Anna.
"I can't believe we all fell for that," he grumbled.
Anna ignored him in favor of standing up to pad over to the kitchen. "I know I saw something…" But the room was empty aside from cobwebs and an old kitchen table with three chairs. She scanned the room once more, but seeing nothing, she lowered her weapon and relaxed. "Must be making myself jumpy, too," she murmured to herself before turning back to settle back in her place by the fire. She ignored Lance's impatient look and Matt's and Natalie's frowns. "Now, where was I? Oh, yes, the man had just left. So you're probably expecting that he vanished into the woods, right? But he made it to the village just fine. The man at the food court sold him the vegetables, and saw him in his way."
"So can he back up this story?" Lance snorted.
Anna shrugged, "Sure, but he doesn't like to talk about it. Nearly no one in Greenwood does. We actually typically avoid this house entirely, and so does everything else."
"Didn't seem to bug you very much to come in here," Matt pointed out in a mild tone.
Anna shot him a wry smile, "It does, actually. But we needed a place to stay since you dropped our tent in the river and it's still drying. And we wouldn't want Lance to turn into a tree on our way to Greenwood in the dark. So here we are in a bona fide haunted house. Lana would say we're a bunch of brash nimrods who should've toughed out the cold, though."
"I'll bite," Natalie sighed. "What made the place haunted?"
"An hour after the man left, his daughter showed up in the village, alone," Anna replied in a somber voice. She was badly wounded—bitten by a wolfdog, we think. We don't know how she got to the village alone, or why; Lana immediately began trying to heal her, but the girl had already lost too much blood, and died. Immediately, a couple of rangers set off to inform her parents to bring them back here, but when they got here, the mother was already dead, and the father was nowhere to be found."
"How'd she die?" Matt asked in a hushed voice.
Anna's reply was cut off by a thud from upstairs. The four fell silent, staring up at the ceiling with wide eyes. The temperature of the room dropped by several degrees and a few pieces of loose debris skittered across the floor. They each held their breaths when they heard a child's laugh echo down the stairs, followed by footsteps rapidly thudding down, but no one could be seen. The fire flickered and nearly went out as Lance leapt to his feet with a curse followed by the other three. The front door abruptly swung open and slammed shut. Everything fell silent once more.
"See? Haunted," Anna whispered in a shaky voice after a few moments.
The others didn't respond. A scream suddenly pierced the silence, causing Matt, Lance, and Natalie all to leap a foot into the air in shock, each. Anna didn't jump, though she looked shaken. The fire returned to its former size and its crackle filled the room.
"That'll be it for the night," Anna told the others in a murmur, sinking back down. "Everyone who comes here after sunset gets exactly that, and it only happens once per visit."
"What the hell?" Lance whispered. "I thought ghosts were just a myth…"
"Maybe we should go?" Natalie whimpered, clinging to Matt's arm. She could feel Matt shaking.
Anna was already calming, and shook her head. "I promise that's all from the supernatural for the night. I've been here several times and nothing else ever happens beyond what we've already seen."
"You came back after seeing that?" Matt weakly asked as he sank back down, dragging Natalie with him. He wordlessly offered her a hug as she whimpered again.
"Yeah. I spent a month or so trying to figure out what actually happened here, and trying to… pacify whatever ghosts are still haunting this place. My nerves finally ran out before I got anywhere significant, though. Things move around while you're in here, you get that same ghostly replay every night, and sometimes the whole place shakes."
Lance finally sat down as well and asked, "So, how did the mother die? Wolfdog pack?" He was obviously trying to find something else to focus on besides the haunting incident they'd just witnessed.
"Something mauled the mother, yes, but I doubt it was a wolf dog, or even a pack. The rangers found her in her bed, blood everywhere, but no prints or tracks of any kind. They brought her back and buried her in Greenwood beside her daughter. They tried to track the father, but there had been a dry spell, and they couldn't find his tracks. They left a note explaining everything they knew and to tell him to come to the village if he saw the message, but he was never seen again. And to this day, we have no idea what happened to her or the father." Anna swallowed with a shiver, glancing about the room, and muttered, "I forgot how creepy this place is; I wouldn't have set foot in here if I'd remembered."
"Were you one of the rangers who investigated?" Matt asked, his eyes nervously darting about.
"No, I was only four at the time," Anna replied. "By the time I came out here at sixteen, there wasn't much more to discover. The bloodstains are still in the wood, but there wasn't any sign of a struggle, none of the doors looked like they'd been forced, and there's nothing to indicate what killed her."
Natalie finally spoke up since suggesting they should leave. "I knew this place didn't feel right. Can… can we please risk trying to get to Greenwood? Or at least deal with a miserable night in the cold?"
"Doesn't feel right?" Lance asked, sharply. "What do you mean?"
Natalie glanced up the stairs as she said, "I've been feeling like I'm being watched ever since I set foot inside, and my mana is making my skin prickle—even before Anna mentioned that the place is haunted. I don't think we should be here. I don't think anyone should be here."
Anna hesitated before nodding. She stood and snagged a partially burning branch from the fire and gestured for them to gather their gear. "Alright, I think I can get us all to Greenwood, safely. Just stick close, and hold hands. If anything starts feeling funny, say so immediately; I've only got about ten seconds to stop your transformation once it starts."
"On second thought, maybe we should camp in the yard," Lance suggested uneasily. He recalled Anna's last horror story, and the truth behind it. He vowed to never let her tell any stories of any kind, ever again. He would go through life feeling a lot happier if he didn't hear any more horror-stories-turned-truth.
"With all the beasts of Greenwood and a ghost running around? No thanks," Matt snorted.
The team filed out of the house, and flinched as the door slammed shut behind them of its own accord. Matt just barely snagged Natalie's wrist as the mage tried to bolt, and hauled her back with a scolding mutter. Anna held her hand out for Lance to take, who in turn grabbed Matt's, who kept Natalie tucked close. The ranger started a fast walk towards Greenwood, knowing the path by heart, even in the dark, and wary of their single flickering torch. They had to get to the protected part of Ashwood before it burned out, she knew, or her friends would likely turn into trees. She would be fine, because she was never lost in Ashwood, but the same wasn't true for the other three.
They orange glow from the fire cast eerie, flickering shadows on the ground from various bushes and trees. A crisp breeze set the dry leaves rustling overhead, and fallen ones crunched underfoot. An owl hooted somewhere in the forest, and they occasionally saw a pair of eyes in the brush reflecting the firelight before the creature the eyes belonged to vanished. Anna bit her lip as the branch burned lower, drawing uncomfortably close to her skin—close enough to begin to scald her. But then they stepped over a stream, and she visibly relaxed and dropped her branch in the water in favor of casting a light spell.
"We're safe, now," she announced, drawing her hand out of Lance's and wiping the sweat that had gathered on her palm off on her dress.
The other three let out matching sighs, and Matt flushed as he realized how he'd been holding Natalie. He let go with an awkward, mumbled apology, missing Natalie's disappointed pout. Anna turned to lead again, and they each followed, though they couldn't resist glancing back at the way they'd come. Each of them felt the blood drain from their faces at the sight of a faintly glowing, translucent girl who couldn't be older than five or six standing on the other side of the stream, staring at them. She let out an echoing giggle, waved, and then vanished. The team bolted, heading directly for Greenwood. None of them stopped running until they reached Anna's house, and darted inside to slump down on various surfaces.
For a few minutes, they all simply panted with racing hearts.
"We all saw that, right?" Matt finally rasped.
"Uh, huh," Natalie gulped.
"Please tell me she's not going to haunt us all night," Lance pleaded.
Anna shook her head, "I doubt it. She didn't cross the stream. Mighty Oak's protection must not allow her into Greenwood."
"Good," Natalie sighed. "No more ghost stories based on truth. Ever."
"I can second that," Lance added.
"Same here."
"Fine, no more true ghost stories," Anna sighed. She perked up and added, "Oh, but I know a good one about a giant spider! Want to hear it?"
"No!" the other three all yelped.
A/N: Happy Halloween! Sorry it came out so late; I was in work and class all day. :P
I swear the next chapters are coming for my other works. Things have been slowed because I bought Witcher 3, and it's absorbing my life/free time. XD It is, however, giving me tons of ideas to add to my works, so that's good. Retribution has been pushed back because I've decided to combine the next couple of chapters in an attempt to get the story done faster by not giving myself the opportunity to procrastinate another several months between chapters, so next one will be a long one with only the epilogue after it. :P
Responses to Guest reviewers:
Little Follower: Yup, Matt is just mumbling there. Outline for the future kinda fell apart due to new games in my house, but not too badly. Yup, Lance has no time or patience for Matt's laziness. XD
I name stories as a one or two word description of what's going on in it. I just thought it makes finding the oneshot you actually want to read a little easier. If I were to make it a full story, I'd give it a much better name, obviously. :P
Don't worry, I don't really believe in there being only one way to do anything, within reason. And everyone has their preferences for writing. Mine just isn't FPPoV.
Character interactions, as I've said before, are mah fave—especially banter, which Lance gets out the most. Yeah… magic ruins all good plots. :P I usually have Anna using water magic in my stories, just because, but I turned a blind eye on that option because it ruins the effect of the story.
