A/N: Here's the first official chapter of the story. I hope you enjoy it.

Chapter One

Haddonfield, Illinois

October 28, 2008

Ben hated it. He hated it a lot.

There was really nothing special about it. It was just an average house that looked right at home in a Midwestern town such as this. There was certainly nothing about it to identify it from any of its neighbors. It didn't stand out as anything special. It was just a house, an old two-story structure with clapboard siding. The paint was white and fairly recent. Its windows were clean and unbroken. The plumbing was intact and functioning. The front porch was entirely new; the old one had been torn down a few years ago. It looked just like every other house on this street: clean, pristine, and livable.

But Ben hated it anyway.

There was something about the house he couldn't explain. It was a sense of foreboding, as if the structure was somehow alive and could sense his presence. The windows were like black, empty eyes that glared down at him on the lawn, daring him to come closer. The front door was like a gaping maw, the entrance to hell itself, beckoning with its doormat of a tongue. Ben shivered.

Mr. Greene came out the door and called to Ben, "Come on, son! Get inside!"

Ben reluctantly walked up the drive to the front door and stepped over the threshold. The foyer was small. There was a staircase to the second floor to the left and a doorway to the living room on the right. The house had an old, unlived-in feeling, and Ben was sure they were the first people to actually occupy it in quite some time.

Upstairs were the bedrooms. His room was at the front of the house, the window overlooking the front yard. Night was about to fall and the ground was bathed in shadows. He looked away from the window, his bright green eyes scanning the little room and its sparse furnishings. He dropped his bags on the bed, sighing in disappointment and running a hand unconsciously through his brown hair.

That sense of unease he'd had when he first saw the house was even stronger now. He lay on his bed and looked up at the ceiling, trying to think of why he felt so melancholy. The room itself wasn't bad, at least not physically, but like the house itself, it had some kind of aura about it that gave a sense of something otherworldly, something inhuman…

…something evil.

"Now cut that out," Ben muttered to himself. "There is no such thing as an evil house. You've seen The Haunting too many times. It's just a house."

"Ben?" Mr. Greene poked his head into the room. "Who are you talking to?"

"No one," Ben replied, shaking his head. "Just…thinking out loud."

"Ah," Mr. Greene replied, grinning a little. "And what are you thinking about?"

"Oh, the usual. Sex, drugs, that kind of thing." Ben allowed himself a small smile.

"Well, that's a relief, I thought you might be talking about something useless, like school and homework."

"Nope. Don't waste my time on such trash." Ben smiled more genuinely now, looking over at his father.

"I raised you right," Mr. Greene replied. "Be sure you unpack and get ready for school in the morning."

"Sure thing, Dad," Ben said, sitting up and unzipping his suitcase. Mr. Greene left, and Ben started pulling out clothes and placing them in neat stacks in the bureau beside the mirror on the wall. After that was done – a process that took all of ten minutes – he began on the next bag, which contained his books. Ben was quite a reader and was fond of the classics, though his tastes could also be rather macabre. Along with an anthology of Shakespeare, he had copies of Poe's stories, Dracula, and Frankenstein. He placed them on the bookshelf on the mirror's other side, and after twenty minutes, he was completely unpacked and his room was stocked. His schoolbag was in the corner by the door. He averted his eyes from it; the prospect of starting a new school was daunting.

Instead he turned to the window and looked out over the lawn again. It was yellow-green and dying; the late October air was signaling the coming of winter. Across the street and on either side of him were other small homes like this one, probably owned by moderately wealthy middle-aged couples. It was a typical American town, no different than any other.

And yet…

Now that he wasn't doing anything, the feeling of quiet discomfort returned in full force. He turned away from the window, thinking. What was so unusual about this particular house that he felt so repelled by it?

Maybe some fresh air was what he needed. He turned and left the room, descending the stairs and heading out the front door to stand on the lawn. The sun was beginning to descend over the treetops of Haddonfield, and the effect was serene, close to perfect. It was marred only by the sense that radiated from the house behind him.

A small noise from his right made him look around. A short, fat man stepped out of the house next to his own and was gazing at him in a peculiar way. Ben guessed he was around forty, judging from the tuft of thinning gray hair and the few stray hairs on his upper lip.

"Hello," Ben called, deciding that it would be best to be cordial from the start. "I'm Ben Greene." He walked over to the fence that separated the two properties and held his hand out to shake his neighbor's.

"Tom Mathis," said the man, his gaze oddly subdued. "Are you living this house here?"

Isn't that fairly obvious? Ben thought, but said instead, "Yes. My dad got a job in town. We just moved in."

Mr. Mathis just looked at him for a few moments. At length he said, "I see."

"Is…is there a problem?" Ben asked, not sure if he really wanted to know the answer.

"No, no, of course not," Mr. Mathis said, too quickly. Ben knew he wasn't being totally truthful. Mr. Mathis seemed to realize his mistake, for he added, "Well, it's been vacant for several years now. It has a…history."

"What kind of history?" Ben asked, that feeling of unease very strong in his gut.

Mr. Mathis didn't answer. Instead, he stared past Ben up at the old house, his eyes glazed with distant memories, things Ben wasn't sure if he wanted to know about. Finally, the man looked back at Ben and said, "Don't worry about it. What's done is done." He stared off into space for a moment before adding, "Well, you'd better get inside. 'Round Halloween, I don't recommend staying out too late." Then, without offering an explanation, he turned around and headed up the front steps into his house, leaving a very confused Ben staring after him.

"Do I even want to know?" Ben asked himself, turning to look back at the old house. It seemed to be staring at him.

He shivered and added, "No. Definitely not."

He glanced once more to the spot where his neighbor had retreated into his house. Then, trying to ignore the trepidation brewing within him, he turned back to his new home and headed inside.

…

Mr. Mathis closed the door behind him and ran his hand along the wall, looking for the light switch. He flipped it, but nothing happened. "Shit," he muttered. "Now what?"

He trudged into the hall, feeling his way into the living room, where a jack-o'-lantern provided a little light on the coffee table. In the near-darkness, the flickering glow coming from the pumpkin's innards looked rather menacing.

Mr. Mathis picked up a flashlight on the mantle and switched it on, shining its beam around the room. The couches and chairs cast long shadows that stretched across the floor. The coat rack in the corner of the room was a hulking figure in the darkness. He shivered.

Walking back out into the foyer, Mr. Mathis shone the light in the direction of the basement door, where the fuse box was. He opened the door, which groaned loudly, only adding to the sense of foreboding that was growing in his stomach. "Get a grip on yourself," he said, starting down the stairs.

He froze on the sixth step. He was quite certain that he'd heard another set of footsteps besides his own on the landing behind him. He wheeled around, but there was no one there, and the sound had stopped. "Wow, you're really losing it," he murmured, turning around again and heading downstairs. The basement was even darker than the rest of the house, if that was possible. He found the fuse box in a matter of seconds and headed over to it. Then he froze, his mouth dropping open.

The box was standing open, and its contents had been smashed to pieces.

Mr. Mathis stared at the mangled fuses for a long moment. "What the hell?" he muttered, leaning forward to get a closer look. Who could have possibly done this? And why…?

He suddenly stiffened. He had to get out of there. He had to call the police. There was someone in his house. He turned around—

It struck without warning, and Mr. Mathis caught a brief glimpse of his attacker's face in the flashlight beam. It was pale, expressionless, and oddly familiar. He realized in an instant who – no, what – was before him. He opened his mouth to scream, but the sound died in his throat as the shape brought a sledgehammer down in a wide arc, smashing into Mr. Mathis' skull with a sickening crunch. The man's body collapsed without a sound, and it stood over him, observing the twitching form from behind the mask, breathing deep, heavy breaths, tilting its head a little to the side…