The lobby was finished with a hour, after much commanding from Laynie and Steve. Being type-A people, they made a very intimidating decorating committee. Nevertheless, the task was finished and the five went upstairs for a late breakfast.
Carter and Laynie sat at the dining table for a while and talked. It was mostly Laynie talking about how excited she was to go to the haunted house that night.
"Hey, I'm gonna go to my room, I have some stuff to do." Carter quickly excused herself, knowing that if she stayed around her excited friend she'd guilt herself into going.
As she walked toward her room she ran into Tony.
"Carter, can I talk to you?" He asked.
"Um, yeah sure." She agreed hesitantly.
They walked down to Tony's lab. "Laynie told me you didn't want to go tonight." He said simply.
"Oh yeah, I was just looking forward to handing out candy, it's my favorite part about Halloween." Carter replied, trying to sound convincing.
Tony sat down at his workbench and began tinkering with a half-finished contraption of some sort. "How about you do neither and I give you some lie training?"
Carter glared at Tony. "I'm not lying."
He gave her a look. "I wasn't born yesterday, Carter. Stop it. I promise you the haunted house is safe. I would never take you or Laynie somewhere I wasn't absolutely sure you wouldn't be hurt."
Carter sighed. "Does everybody know?" She muttered.
Tony smirked. "I'm not the first to figure it out then?"
"You came after Bruce. Unless Laynie has figured it out too. She hasn't said anything though, so I'm guessing not."
He nodded. "Bruce would be the first. Nothing gets past him. Nothing."
"You're telling me."
"Anyway, it's safe. Both Clint and I will be there if something did happen. You don't have to worry." Tony reassured her.
"You're not going to give me the option of staying, are you?" Carter asked, already knowing the answer.
"Nope."
She groaned. "Fine. I'll go. Just don't tell Laynie and Clint about this, please?"
"Yeah sure." He replied with a shrug.
Satisfied he'd comforted Carter, they both went back upstairs. Carter to help Bruce organize candy, Tony to put on his costume. Tony always impatient, declared he was tired of sitting around the house and said he would take Clint and the girls around town to do some daylight trick-or-treating.
"Aren't we a little old for that Tony?" Laynie asked suspiciously.
"We're superheroes. They can't deny us candy. Besides this is New York, we're talking about."
"Laynie, we're going to be getting free candy, don't question the man." Carter said with a grin.
Clint rolled his eyes at Carter's comment.
Laynie shrugged. "Sounds legit."
In a few minutes, Count Stark the Vampire, Robin Hood Clint, Captain Carter Beckett, and Sallaynie were walking through the streets of New York.
There were countless costumes on the streets, many of which could be recognized as an Avenger.
Like Tony anticipated, nobody had a problem giving Laynie and Carter candy.
Less than an hour later, Carter and Laynie each had a pillowcase full of candy.
"I would have never thought of bringing pillowcases." Tony said in awe of the fact that the two girls had gathered so much candy.
"That's what we always did when we were kids. With pillowcases you can go to more houses than you normally would and get enough candy to last you months." Carter replied with a shrug.
Laynie shook her head. "A pillowcase lasts an entire year for me, as long as Carter doesn't get into it."
Clint frowned. "It would last five minutes with Thor."
They all laughed.
Within a few hours, it was beginning to get dark and the younger children were off the streets. More teenagers and adults began coming out, and Tony and Clint were done. They were always so cautious in large crowds when with the girls; probably brought on by past experiences through their jobs.
They headed home for a quick dinner (leftover pizza and candy corn along with massive amounts of Carter and Laynie's candy), then made sure everyone downstairs was surviving the onslaught of children before heading to the haunted house.
Tony and Laynie were practically bursting with excitement on the walk there. Tony had apparently been before, and was raving about how cool it was.
"There's more than thirty different rooms in the haunted house. You pass through each one as you walk through." Tony started to explain.
"What are the rooms like?" Carter asked, anxious to know what she was getting into.
"There's all different ones. Some are based off insane asylums, abandoned hospitals or warehouses that type of stuff. Some of the rooms have zombies, and then I'm not even sure what to call some of the monsters they have. There's just a lot of different rooms and they've probably changed a lot of them since last year." Tony said with a shrug.
"Great." Carter murmured.
Laynie bumped her friend with her shoulder and whispered under her breath, "I bet ten bucks Tony will be the first of us to scream like a girl."
Carter laughed nervously. "Yeah, I'm sure."
Tony led the way to the will call booths. He quickly picked up their tickets and handed one to each person and then they went to stand in line.
The house didn't open for another fifteen minutes, so the group had a little while to wait, not to mention that the line was already pretty long.
And as the time passed Carter became more anxious and Laynie was to the point where she could not contain her excitement.
Eventually the line started to move signalling that the house had opened and they were letting people in.
They separated the line into groups sending them into different rooms to go through. And then Tony, Clint, Carter, and Laynie were separated into their group and sent into the house.
Carter wrapped both arms around herself and kept close to Laynie, who was bouncing up and down excitedly.
As they were entering the first room, Laynie noticed her nervous friend and linked their arms together. "Just stick with us!"
Carter smiled a little and nodded.
The first room was dark with very little lighting and was made to look like a dark forest. From what Carter could see there was what was supposed to be blood splattered on the ground. Decapitated bodies and wayward limbs were scattered about. You could just barely see the alcoves where the actors popped out to scare you. And you could only find them if you really looked.
Somehow, Carter and Laynie ended up in front of the group leading the pack. Something Carter was not pleased with in any way.
They walked a while with nobody jumping out at them. But just when Carter thought they might get through the room without being jumped at, a man covered with blood came from behind a tree and swung an ax near them.
While Laynie had been shocked by the appearance and yelped slightly, Carter had almost knocked Laynie into the wall and had sent both Tony and Clint into laughing fits by her reaction.
As they went on to the next room the spooky forest got increasingly darker and the floor became cold beneath their feet.
The second a frost-bitten zombie lunged out of the shadows Laynie screamed and expertly maneuvered herself behind Carter without even thinking. Carter stopped and grabbed hold of Clint, who waved the zombie off upon seeing how scared Carter was. Few other zombies approached them, but as Carter gripped Clint's arm, he could feel her trembling.
Laynie stuck with Tony. Carter and Clint could hear them jumping or squealing and then laughing at each other for being scared.
Eventually Carter realized what she was doing and released Clint from her death grip. She looked at his face and all she saw was a look of amusement silently mocking her.
She huffed and stomped over to Laynie and Tony, though still be incredibly vigilant of her surroundings. She entered into the cabin at the end of the room with her arm linked in Laynie's once again.
The inside of the cabin appeared to be old and rotted. Dusty photos hung on the walls and an old, musty smell hung in the air.
Carter silently wondered how they managed to do that. As she did so, something suddenly grabbed her sides. She screamed and practically jumped on top of Laynie.
Turning, she saw Clint laughing like a maniac and Tony trying desperately not to laugh, but failing.
And now they're laughing at my expense. Great. Carter turned back around and quickly scurried after her friend.
Laynie hugged her friend with one arm and smiled. "See, it isn't so bad."
"It gets worse!" Tony cried gleefully.
"Thanks Tony, I appreciate that." Carter said sarcastically.
Finally they got out of the creepy forest section of the house and they entered into what would be considered a prison. And as Tony said, it got worse.
They had to weave in and out of cells that had prisoners and dead bodies chained up in them.
Carter was once again pushed in front to deal with any ambushes that may come.
She entered one cell cautiously, it was too dark to see if anything was inside. She got halfway in before a prisoner came out from against the wall and got in her face.
"Hey there, little girl," he sneered at her.
She squealed and ran out of the cell in a hurry. She ran into Laynie, who was screaming with laughter. "Come on, we don't want to get separated from the guys!"
They ran through the cells and found Tony holding a conversation with one of the chained prisoners.
"Only him."
Carter just stared. "Tony, why? Just why?"
"Because I can." He answered. He turned back to the prisoner, bid him a goodnight, and they continued on their way.
The next room had a heavy metal door that Clint volunteered to force open. Once inside, the door shut behind them, and blinding white lights turned on for a total of three seconds.
The walls were stark white and cushioned. There were people laying on floors in straight jackets, and others laying on the floor dead. There were a few crazed maniacs shambling toward the group when the light turned off, and they were enveloped in total blackness.
It wasn't too bad until all the mental patients released a series of blood curdling wails.
One of them screamed, "Find the door if you can!"
The group panicked and scattered, bumping around in the dark to find the door. None of them were sure if they were brushing against friends or insane patients.
Carter eventually gave up after a while of scrambling to find a door she slid down against the wall and hid her face in her hands.
The mental patients continued to screech around her.
In that moment, she swore she was having a panic attack. A few minutes later the lights started to flicker and she saw all the mental patients laying on the floor, but Laynie, Tony, and Clint were no where to be found.
This cannot be happening. She thought to herself in dread.
She jumped up from the floor and ran to the metal door, which she knew only opened from the outside, and banged on it furiously. The other mental patients must have taken that as a queue, because they all began shrieking again.
Carter fell into the nearest corner, clawing at her ears and sobbing. I'm never getting out of here!