A/N: This was requested for Fictober, and it's a goofy haunted house thing so it might be fun... I hope?
Enjoy!
"Andy?"
It was mostly quiet in the bleak house. April had heard of it from a friend of Orin's and, of course, looked it up to make sure it was real. The rotted floorboards seemed real enough when she heard them creak with her footsteps. Moldy, dusty carpet and a ceiling fan that seemed to spin of its own accord – sadly the only sighting of any remotely ghostly activity – were the standard for the ramshackle place.
The smell was pungent and awful, a mix of stale bread and sweaty feet. The other part, the part that was actually scary, was that Andy was gone.
He'd left to go outside and use the bathroom. Ten minutes ago.
"Hey… Andy?" she called out once more. No reply. Just before she was about to huff exasperation and what was totally not nerves, he jumped in front of the meager light of her phone.
She definitely didn't scream. Or jump.
"Oh, babe sorry! I just found this–" he pointed at a dusty, red and crumpled bit of plasticky fabrics under his arm. "Super cool sleeping bag."
"Ew."
"No, seriously! It was in the kitchen. There were like computers and stuff, too!" Andy said it all in a whisper, and if for no other reason than that April felt a strange discomfort about this all. "Oh, and I was gonna go down in the basement too but then you called and, um, I figured we could snuggle in the sleeping bag?"
Despite his mischievous grin, April rolled her eyes. "You were going to go in the basement?"
"Well, duh… the door was open!"
"Andy!" she whispered angrily.
"Aww!" he slinked forward and wrapped her in a big hug. Normally she'd melt into that, but the preceding aww meant he figured something out, or thought he did.
Sadly, Andy was usually too good at these things.
"What?" she asked, returning the hug because the promise of heat and his squishy, comfortable embrace was too much to ignore.
"You're spooked!"
"Am not!"
"Then let's go check out the basement," he offered.
"Fine," April agreed, and off they went. Once they found the kitchen again, after Andy lost track and April suspiciously enough couldn't quite find the right hallway leading to it anymore, the room was empty.
No computers, no sleeping bags. Nothing. When she shone the light over where Andy said the basement door was, that at least was right. Unlike what he told her, however, the door was closed.
"Andy?"
"What?"
"Didn't you say the door was open?" she nudged him and pointed at the basement door. Andy turned and made a confused noise when he saw.
At that moment, just before April froze up unable to move and Andy grabbed her hand, pulling them along into the night and back into the car and far away from this house, the door slowly creaked open of its own accord.