Disclaimer: I still don't own RENT. Jonathan Larson does. And there are lyrics from Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods, in here if you can find them.

Authoress Note: Okay guys, bear with me here, I know it's way past Halloween, but I just thought this would be funny. Sorry this update took so long.

And, this chapter is for anyone who has ever freaked out in a haunted house, and lived to tell the tale. : )

A Season of Love

-VivaLaVieBohemeA

XXXX

Alexia made that face that she always made when she was seriously debating her sanity. Her brows knitted, her mouth a thin line, she was biting her lip and thinking.

Finally, looking percarioulsy at the steering wheel of her blue Mercedes, she spoke. "You know what, you guys go ahead. I don't think I'm going to go in. I don't do haunuted houses well."

Mark smiled at his girlfriend, and, while she blushed, Roger sounded scandalized. "Don't do haunted houses well?" the musician laughed. "What do you mean, 'don't do haunted houses well?'"

"I just, don't okay?" Alexia answered, shying away from revealing anymore.

After a short pause of silence, Maureen raised an eyebrow. "Sounds like there's long a story behind this one." Alexia mentally noted how evil Maureen was. "Care to share?"

"Not really."

"Oh, come on, it can't be that bad." Joanne gave her girlfriend a forbidding look.

"Oh, believe me, it can."

"What, did you pee yourself, or something?" Mimi ventured innocently.

Alexia rolled her eyes. "No, I didn't pee myself. I've only been into one, and I am never going in one again." She paused "I was thirteen, okay, almost fourteen, and my sister Stefanie had this new boyfriend, so she convinced my parents, my brother Arthur and I, I can't remember why my other brother, Jon, wasn't there, to meet her and this guy at the Mexican restaurant we used to hang out at all the time-"

"And your point is?" Roger asked rudely, tapping the watch that he seldom wore. "Come, we won't have time to see anything in there before they close."

"Roger, it's a haunted house," Mark said, looking more than just a little annoyed. What was Roger's problem?

"Anyway," Alexia continued, "So, here we were, we ate dinner, went to get ice cream, and then my sister gets the brilliant idea that we should all go to a haunted house. I was only thirteen, I had no idea what to expect, but I assumed it couldn't be that bad, so I went along." She shook her head. "I think my sister just wanted an excuse to hang on her new boyfriend. She really liked him, but then he cheated on her about six months after that and I can't even remember his name, except for the fact that my brother called him Mr. Stupid after that-"

"So, you were at the haunted house and?" Roger chided, eager for Alexia to finish her anecdote.

"Okay," Alexia didn't notice the note of sarcasm in Roger's voice. She went on. "So this haunted house we went to, it was like, one of the best in the nation at the time, all over the national magazines, and everything, but my mother kept telling me that it wasn't really that scary, and my brother said I could just hide behind him if I got scared. Like I said, I was thirteen, I didn't think that anything like that could scare me." Mark stifled a laugh, imagining his girlfriend at fourteen. She probably hadn't changed much, assuming that she was pretty mature for her age, and Mark could tell that she had been, even though they would have bouts of sophomoric immaturity now, sticking their tongues out at each other and such. "We get there, and my mom's taking pictures, doing the whole 'It's Alexia's first trip through a haunted house!' and 'Stefy has a new boyfriend, let's get pictures!' thing. I wasn't even nervous until my dad said he wasn't going in. My dad's a politician, nothing scares him."

"We waited in line for like an hour, there was this big group of high school kids in front of us, and they were hanging all over each other and kissing. It should have been a pretty good foreshadowing of how scary things were going to be in there. It was disgusting." She paused, getting her thinking back on track. "Anyway, after we paid our admission, we headed toward the bathrooms to go real quick so we wouldn't do what Mimi suggested, and there was this sign on the door that said 'Restrooms, please knock' in big red letters that look official, so my mom went and knocked, and this big guy that's make up was supposed to look like he was all, how can I put this," Alexia paused, attempting to come up with a comparison. "He looked like Johnny from Arsenic and Old Lace, I actually think I told him that, jumped out at us, and my sister screamed and jumped behind Pat, that was his name, Pat, and acted like she was terrified. It was hysterical, and I thought, hey, if this is what a haunted house is like, it's not bad, it's actually pretty funny."

"The guy shut the door and my mom knocked again, I remember her screaming some obscenity at the guy and saying if he jumped out again, she'd punch his lights out, and knowing my mother, she would. So, he let us pass, and then we were all geared up to go in."

"There was this really long, well lit staircase," Alexia continued, much to Roger's dismay. Mark casually around his girlfriend's shoulders as she continued. "And then these doors that looked like the ones at the community center, you know, like gymnasium doors, and they said "The Point of No Return" above them. My brother and I started singing that song from Phantom with that title," She smiled at Mark. The Phantom of the Opera was their musical. They'd seen it together quite a few times since they'd become a couple. "And Arthur made mom go in the front. He probably didn't want to admit it in front of Stef and I, but I think he was kind of, well, not so much scared as anxious, and Stef was behind her, then Arthur, and then I, and Pat was bringing up the rear. Thinking back on it, I bet Pat wanted to be in the back because he was probably scared out of his un-ironed pants. I wouldn't put it past that dope. He turned out to be a real piece of work."

"Anyway," Alexia continued, coming off of her tangent and back to her story, "So the doorman who looked like some gothic vampire dude opened the door for us, and then growled at my sister and stared at her rear end as we passed, and it was pitch dark except for a strobe light off in a corner somewhere. Arthur had a flashlight in his coat pocket and he took that out just in time for the first monster to jump out at us." Alexia stopped for a second, taking Mark's hand in hers. She squeezed it three times, and he squeezed her hand back, listening intently to his girlfriend's tale.

"I remember what that guy looked like. He kind of resembled one of those little green army men, you know what I'm talking about, the little kid's toys? That someone had left under a magnifying glass in the middle of June. His make-up was so well done that he really looked like his green features were just…melting off of his face. He shouted and growled, I screamed bloody murder and jumped behind my brother, grabbing onto his shirt and just cowering. I felt like someone had just pulled the floor out from under my feet, I was so scared. I just flipped out and started crying, and hid behind my brother for a few minutes, holding on to Arthur and closing my eyes, following behind him really closely. Nothing happened for a few minutes, and I started to get a hold of myself, after all, I was thirteen, not three, so I loosened my grip on my poor brother, I think I'd kind of been choking him I was holing onto his shirt so tightly. It was still pretty dark and maze-like, and my mom started just laughing. It was almost strange, but my mom can find humor in the strangest places, and she said that when she was young and used to go through these tunnels and you'd get going into them as they got smaller and smaller and soon you'd almost be crawling on your hands and knees, and right as she said that, she smacked into something and felt around. Sure enough, it was a tunnel we were going to have to crawl through. I started hanging on my brother again, afraid that another monster was going to mysteriously appear."

"Arthur started darting his flashlight around, saying it was Tinker Bell, as we stooped lower and lower into this tunnel, and it was getting thinner too, to the point where you couldn't really even move your arms too much, and right as Arthur, with quite a bit of effort, maneuvered his light so it was shining on the wall, another monster stuck it's head, and this monster had like a kind of pumpkin head with all of these sharp looking teeth and his hands had really long claw-like nails He was even scarier than the first guy, out of a little cut out window thingy, hissed right in my face and said 'No one makes it out of my tunnel alive Missy.' I knew it was all one hundred percent fake, that I was completely safe, but I wasn't thinking about that at the moment. I wasn't thinking about anything but getting my butt of that tunnel alive and out of that haunted house before that monster ate me. I screamed, Arthur screamed, Stef and Pat screamed and I think my mom even yelped, and we all took off, running as fast as we could in that little tunnel, just screaming the whole way."

"I flipped out when we made it into the next stairwell that led us to the next level of the place, and hid behind my brother the rest of the way through. I was so scared that night when I went to bed that I didn't sleep at all. I just kept running to the bathroom and I threw up five times." Alexia paused. "And that is why I'm not going in there."

Mark looked at the sign bearing the haunted house's name. "Honey, what was that place called?" He asked.

"I don't really remember," Alexia answered, "The Haunted Catacombs, I think."

Mark bit his lip. "Uh, honey, does that look familiar?" he pointed toward the sign.

Alexia gasped. "Oh crap."

The sign read The Haunted Catacombs, under new management.

XXXX

"I AM NOT GOING IN THERE! NO WAY!" Alexia shouted as Roger attempted to pull her out of her car. "LET ME GO!"

Mark put himself between his girlfriend and his best friend. "Roger, stop IT!" The filmmaker steeled himself, half expecting Roger to hit him. "She said she's not going!" he paused, "Why do you want her to go so badly, anyway?"

"So I can test her story out, see if your girlfriend's really that scared of these things. She'll punch a guy in the middle of the Tavern on the Green, but she cowers from a little monster." Roger playfully made chicken noises.

"Do you know how immature you are?" Alexia asked, clambering out of her car. Mark slid his arm around her waist and pulled her close. After a minute, she added, "Fine, if your daring me, I'll go." She gulped nervously. "I'll go."

And with that, Alexia and Mark turned and headed toward the looming haunted house, the chilled October air ruffling them, leaving the other two couples in their wake.

Standing in line, Alexia was still debating her conviction to prove Roger wrong. "You know, Collins is lucky that he had to go pick Angel up at the airport and couldn't come." She finished. "You and I should have gone with him. Actually, you and I should have gone to wherever Angel went."

Mark adjusted the army green strap of his messenger-style camera bag that hung over his shoulder. "We don't have to do this if you don't want to."

"Oh, I have to go," she answered, "And prove to Roger the fact that I was terrified of this place as a teenager and that I'm fairly certain he'll flip out, too."

Mark laughed. He could see that happening. He pulled Alexia closer to him and she laid her head over on his chest, smiling. Mark would make sure nothing scared her. Mark would keep her safe.

Joanne spoke up. "Hey, Alexia, did they have a haunted forest when you went through this?"

Alexia reluctantly turned around to face her friend. "No, why?"

The lawyer pointed to an advertisement hanging on the warehouse wall nearby. "They do now. Look."

Alexia looked over at the brightly colored poster. Great, she thought as she handed the ticket counter attendant her admission fee, even more bang for our buck.

XXXX

The lit stairwell was still there, and Alexia felt shivers course through her as she stepped onto the white tiled floor, but it now gave way to two open doors that led out to the darkness of a forest that lay just outside. She clung as tightly to Mark as she could as he took his camera out of his bag, wound it and began filming.

"October 31st, ten p.m.," He said, "Eastern Standard Time, here we stand going into the woods."

Alexia laughed nervously. "Into the Woods," she sang sarcastically, "Into the Woods then out of the Woods and home before dark."

Mark turned the camera on himself. "Am I scared? No. I work for Alexi Darling. There is nothing here that could be more frightening than my boss." Alexia giggled, and Mark continued. "But, Roger has brought us here tonight, and I think he's trying to kill us." He joked in his narration, and turned the camera toward his roommate. "Are you Roger?"

"Am I what?"

"Trying to kill us."

"Ha Ha, very funny Mark." He paused and made a face at the camera. "This is all fake, all make-up and flashy lights. There's nothing here that can scare me, either."

They rounded a corner and entered into the edge line of the forest where the moonlight hung low, their only source of light brightening their path. Mimi pulled a lighter from the deep recesses of her handbag and flicked it open and then flicked it on as they entered the woods and the dense foliage blocked out any light that could have eased their fears.

"Mark, honey, maybe we should go back," Alexia began as a wolf's cry (that even she knew could have been a cheap recording, like one of those CDs that you can buy at one of those Halloween stores that pop up in an empty storefront just for the season and then is gone as soon as the first of November comes around) sounded in the distance. She clung tightly to her boyfriend, making Mark secretly smile at her closeness. "You know, I don't really care if Roger's right. Let him be right, who cares." She continued nervously, "I know I don't care."

"If you really don't want to do this, we can turn back." Mark pulled her even closer, and Alexia melted. She almost forgot about her fear of where they were. She was right, who cared?

Something rustled in the leaves behind Joanne and Maureen, who were oblivious to anything but each other. A few seconds and then the rustling stopped. The group pressed forward.

Roger slinked his way up behind Alexia and began humming the Jaws theme.

"Roger, shut up." Mark hissed in the relative silence. "That's not funny. How old are you, six?"

Roger kept humming, and before any of them knew what was happening, they were surrounded in the woods by an ever smaller growing circle of hideous clown-like monsters. The musician shrieked like a little girl and practically knocked Mimi down in his retreat from the group, breaking through the circle of monsters and disappearing into the thickness of the trees. "ROGER!" Mimi shouted, sounding more annoyed than frightened.

Mark chuckled. Alexia was right. Roger was even more afraid of these things than she was.

A clown walked right up to Joanne and growled. She just rolled her eyes. "Who did your make-up, your mother?" she asked, stomping her foot down quite forcefully on top of the monster's own foot, making it retreat in submission. It's fellow cohorts followed.

Maureen began applauding, and Mark, Alexia and Mimi soon followed. "Yay Honeybear!" Maureen shouted, "You showed them who's boss!"

Joanne took a slight, understated bow and the group, their numbers decreased by one, trudged on.

"Does anyone see Roger?" Mimi asked apprehensively, dodging a low hanging branch.

Mark squinted in the darkness, looking for the musician. He didn't see any movement, let alone Roger.

A spider rustled over the top of Alexia's foot, making her shriek. Clowns were bad, but spiders were almost worse. Almost. She flicked the arachnid off and pulled on the sleeve of her boyfriend's brown corduroy jacket. "Mark, a spider just crawled over my foot! A spider!"

XXXX

Alexia got herself under quick control, and let her vice like death grip on Mark go with a muted "Sorry." She was certain that she had probably been hurting her boyfriend's arm the whole time, but Mark cared too much about easing her fear of the haunted house to say anything. She kissed him sweetly on the cheek.

The filmmaker smiled. "What was that for?"

"For keeping me safe." She paused, "I love you."

"I love you, too." He answered.

The leaves rustled behind them again. A grizzly scarecrow-esq monster appeared, stepping in between Mark and Alexia. "Oh, how cute." It said, "Young love."

Maureen shrieked, and Mimi, now boyfriend-less, clung on to Joanne who held tightly to the quivering Maureen.

Then, Alexia did something she never thought she'd have the courage to do. She stepped right up to the monster and raised an eyebrow. "Cute, huh?" she said, her courage mounting, "That's more than can be said for you." The monster didn't move. "Now, I suggest you step away from my boyfriend, or I may be forced to hurt you."

Joanne mentally noted that Alexia's comebacks were a little more threatening than her own.

"No." The Scarecrow answered, grabbing Mark by the arm and holding him like a hostage.

Alexia crossed her arms and sighed, sounding bored. "Let go of him."

"No."

"I'll give you until the count of three," Alexia began, "One…" the monster didn't move. Mark almost had to laugh. What an absurd scene. Here they were, in a haunted house, acting like teenagers, and he was being held hostage by a guy in a demented Scarecrow suit, which his girlfriend was ready to hit. Absurd, it was, indeed.

"Two…"

The Scarecrow tightened his hostage like grip on Mark. Ow, he thought, this guy's taking this a little too far.

Alexia didn't like being provoked, especially not by some minimum wage wannabe in a Scarecrow suit. "Two and a half…" Why wasn't Joanne backing her up here? The monster didn't budge. "I warned you," Alexia said, "Three!"

Before Mark knew what was happening, Alexia had the Scarecrow impersonator on the ground, and she was leading him by the wrist away from the poor sap. "Come on!" she shouted.

This was shaping up to be quite an evening.

XXXX

"This is Mark Cohen reporting for Buzzline," Mark narrated, once again turning the camera on himself. "There's still no sign of Roger, and Alexia just beat up an evil Scarecrow that was trying to take me hostage." He wound the camera and turned it toward Alexia who flashed her best Barbizon-girl smile and waved, most of her fear alleviated.

Just as long as no more spiders came crawling along.

Alexia curtsied slightly. "Thank you, Thank you very much." She said, blowing Mark a kiss.

"Speaking of Roger," Mimi said, "Where could he have gone?"

Mark shrugged. "No idea."

Mimi sighed, exacerbated. "You know, you would think a guy as tough as he claims to be would be scared by a little clown."

"Well, as right as you may be, clowns are pretty scary." Maureen ventured.

"Well," Alexia added, "the bigger the man, the harder the fall."

"No," Joanne raised an eyebrow, "The bigger the man, the bigger the baby."

The all laughed until Mark suddenly held his finger to his lips in a shh, don't say anything, I heard something gesture.

"What?" Alexia mouthed silently. "What's going on?"

Mark leaned forward and whispered in her ear. "Something's going to pop out to our left, I think." He paused, "Don't scream."

Mark was wrong; the next monster came from the right.

Next thing she knew, Alexia was clinging to Mark, screaming as loudly as she could, and they were running, running as far and as fast as they could without the threat of a trip or a fall.

XXXX

The forest didn't so much end as stop, giving way to another brick building, one that Alexia recognized as the one she had gone through before. The Haunted Catacombs may have new management, but it sure hadn't changed much as far as she could tell. The looming forest was a horrifying touch, but as far as she could tell, that was the only change she'd noticed so far. The stark white stair cases whose walls were marred by planned graffiti saying such things as "Turn back NOW!" or "No one's ever lived to tell this tale…" She laughed half-heartedly. Here she was, an adult, a professional actress, a New Yorker, and this haunted house had her quivering like she was fourteen again. To tell the truth, Alexia was quite embarrassed on top of everything else.

But, if she was as embarrassed as she was, she couldn't imagine what Roger was feeling. Alexia laughed.

"Mark, honey, are you okay?" She asked when her boyfriend stopped suddenly.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm just reading some of this graffiti." The filmmaker answered, raising a blond eyebrow. "Wow, some of this stuff is pretty…uh…colorful." He pointed to one in particular.

Alexia approached him, and Mark slinked his arm around her waist. She smiled and read what Mark was pointing to.

!$ YOU! It read, and Alexia stifled completely cracking. "Nice." She said. "I don't think management put that there. People are paying to just be frightened, not cussed out with little asterisks."

Mark took out his camera and filmed the sayings on the wall. "Worse than the 11th Street Lot." He narrated.

Alexia fixed her hair. "How do I look?"

"Just fine." Mark said sweetly, pulling Alexia closer to him.

"Guys?" Roger's voice sounded apprehensively, appearing out of nowhere from around a corner, the knees of his jeans torn out and muddy, like the musician had fallen in his retreat. "Is that you?"

Mimi rushed forward, throwing her thin arms around Roger's neck, kissing him into submission. Alexia couldn't help but smile. But, her smile was quickly erased when Mimi remembered the fact that Roger had abandoned her in the forest, and slapped him flush across the face. Maureen and Joanne jumped back, looking quite frightened.

"Ouch!" The musician exclaimed, rubbing his reddening cheek. "What was that for?"

Mimi huffed like an angry bull. "For leaving me in that STUPID forest! Thanks A LOT!" And with that, she turned on her heel and tromped in through the gymnasium doors and into the next part of the haunted house. After a few seconds of silence, Mark and Alexia burst into laughter.

Roger turned to them, growing angrier and angrier. "It's nice to know you two think this is all funny."

That just made Mark and Alexia laugh even harder.

XXXX

The doors were ominously black and foreboding behind the stark white of the grim reaper doorman's robes. Mark took wound his camera and kept filming as Alexia steeled herself against the rush of fear that was threatening to overtake her. She jammed her hands in the pockets of her green jeans to hide their shaking. Ah, she thought, just like being fourteen again.

The doorman wasn't moving, and Roger approached him first. "Hey, Mr. Doorman dude? Hellllllllllllooooooo?" The musician asked, waving his hand in front of the doorman's face.

No response.

Mark stepped up to the plate, so to speak, next. "Um, hi. Look, we're just trying to get into the next part of the haunted house, so, if you wouldn't mind, maybe you could let us in?"

No response.

Alexia sighed, annoyed and crossed her arms as she approached the doorman herself. "Look, I've had it up to HERE with this place and you people, so if you don't let us pass before I count to five, I may have to hurt you. One..."

The doorman looked up, staring at Alexia with dull, white eyes. "YOU may enter."

And with that, he swung his sicle aside and allowed the group to enter, going past the point of no return.