The group said bye to all of their friends and walked down the long driveway to get to their cars. Francessca and Max got in their own car and waited for Alfred to drive past them so they could follow him.
As they drove behind Alfred, Francessca looked over at her friend. "You don't think this will be like last time, do you?" Her hands tightened on the steering wheel and Max looked over at her.
"Nothing is going to happen. The creep's been locked up ever since. I mean, look at us; it's been a year already and nothing bad has happened to us," Max said, trying to reassure her friend.
Francessca's eyes were clouded with anxiety. She tried to take a deep breath and keep her focus on the road but the thought kept bugging her. "Yeah, but we didn't think anything would happen to us last time…"
Max rolled her eyes, "Oh come on, don't be such a worry wort. Like I said, he's been locked up for a while, so we'll be fine."
"Okay, fine…" Francessca said. Even with her friend's words in her head, doubts swirled in her brain.
Max turned and smiled at her, "See! It'll be fine. We're gonna have a good time and plus it'll give us more of an excuse to cling to the guys." She made a face and Francessca laughed. Max smiled, she knew how badly the encounter last year had been for them all, but Francessca was the one that was always still worrying about it. It had affected them all badly. They were really scared for a while after and Antonio had gone through a lot of pain with his shoulder and collar bone, but he pushed through; they all did.
Max was pulled out of her thoughts when they pulled up to the place. It looked like a giant mansion with an old, worn façade. It looked like it used to be a really nice house once, but now a large sign in front created a different story. "The House of Fears" looked like it was written in blood as it leaned at an angle. Creeper plants traveled up the side of the house and the front looked like it was in desperate need of repair. Two lamps were on either side of the door, providing some light in the dark night.
Alfred had a huge grin on his face, "Look at this place! It's so huge and doesn't it look awesome?"
"Yeah it looks pretty cool," Max said enthusiastically.
Francessca looked a bit confused, "Is it supposed to look like this? It looks like it needs a little TLC."
"Yeah, this is how it's supposed to look. Do you know how long it took us to get it to look like this?" Alfred asked. He didn't even wait for an answer, "Forever! We built a brand new place and then had to make it look like a piece of crap. Yeah, it was a lot of work."
He ushered them all towards the entrance with Antonio bringing up the back. Alfred stopped them before they walked through the front door. "Welcome to the House of Fears, where your nightmares come to life! In the house there are nine rooms and each one has a fear. Number one is Death. Number two is the Dark. Then there's Spiders, Monsters, Dolls-"
Max made a face. She hated dolls to no end and she shivered as she remembered the dolls from the Haunted house last year.
"Number six is Losing your mind. Seven is Ghosts, then there's Losing your way-"
Francessca's grip tightened on Antonio's hand as Alfred said number eight. She was scared of a lot of things, but she was absolutely terrified of getting lost.
"And Number nine is Coffins," Alfred finished. His friends just looked at him as they took in the rooms. Max looked excited as she watched her boyfriend tell about the rooms, except Dolls… She hated Dolls. Francessca held Antonio's hand and stood closer to him. She was nervous about going into the place, and she just hoped that it didn't get too bad. Antonio could feel Francessca's hand tighten around his. He gave her a reassuring squeeze and kissed the top of her head.
"And you're sure we won't get in trouble?" Francessca said as she looked around.
Alfred held up a key ring, "No, my uncle gave me the keys to watch over the place while he's gone for the weekend." Alfred wasn't actually lying; the keys had been given to his parents but his dad had asked him to go by tonight and check to make sure the place was still alright. So he figured he would check it tonight but throw in the tour for his friends.
He opened the door for them and let them all inside. Once they passed him, he closed the door behind him and locked it.
"What are you doing?" Francessca exclaimed.
Alfred stopped and looked at her. "I'm locking it back up. I don't want anyone breaking in," he said matter-of-factly.
She just stared at him, "Isn't that we're doing?"
Alfred sighed and looked at her, "No, like I said before, I have the keys, and besides, the security guy knows we're here."
Alfred cleared his throat, "Okay, now before we officially start, let me ask you something." Everyone turned to look at him. "Do you remember what it feels like to experience true fear? Like when your mouth is dry, your stomach tightens up, and your hair stands on end? Shivers, traveling down your spine… What door, what step, oh no, what-"
"Is there a point to this? Can we just go through?" Francessca asked.
Alfred just glared at her, "I was just trying to practice my lines, jeez." He knocked on the door and a voice came on over the speaker. It sounded like a normal old man's voice, but then it started to sound creepy. They opened the door and walked into the first room.
They continued to walk through the room which was decorated like a funeral parlor with a coffin set up, like at a showing. It was half open so that you could see the person lying down inside. They all walked forward so that they could see him a little better. He looked like an old man, his skin pale and wrinkly.
"I don't see what's so scary about this room," Max said turning away and looking at all the other things in the room. Just as she finished her sentence, the supposedly dead person flew up at her. She screamed and punched the animatronic.
"Whoa, easy babe, don't damage the props or I'll get in trouble!" Alfred said quickly as he ran over to her.
"Well tell him that!" She yelled angrily as she pointed to the dead person who was slowly lowering back down to lay in his coffin.
He sighed and shook his head as he laughed, "Well, I'll be right back, try not to touch anything while I'm gone, got it?" He disappeared and Max continued to glare at the guy in the coffin as if he would pop back out again.
Francessca stood there quietly, then spoke up, "You don't think this place will be as bad as the haunted house ride at the park do you?"
Max turned to her, "I thought I told you not to worry about that?"
"I'm not. I'm worried about the place, like the stuff inside. The haunted house scared me a lot…"
Alfred came back from some secret passage way and walked up to Max, intertwining their fingers. "You don't have to worry about that at all! That place was rundown and so totally unrated and cheap. Now this place," he held his arms out wide, motioning to the whole place, even though he was still holding Max's hand, "This place is top rate scarifying awesomeness!"
Francessca just stared at him, "That doesn't help me… Is it too late to go back home?"
Antonio grabbed her and wrapped his arms around her, "Yep, it's too late, you can't go anywhere. No te preocupes, I'll keep you safe babe."
Alfred sighed and rolled his eyes, "Oh, go get a room you two."
Francessca looked up at him, "I will as long as that means I can leave!"
Alfred laughed, "Nope, you're stuck here with us." Max smiled as she hugged Alfred closer, "Yep, you are!" She pulled away from Alfred and went over to grab Francessca's hand. She excitedly dragged her friend along into the next room while the two boys stayed behind.
Alfred leaned over to look at Antonio, "I think it's time we gave the girls a bit of a scare, don't you think?"
Antonio rolled his eyes, but smirked, "Sure, let's do it." Both boys then continued to follow their girlfriends down the hallway they had just ran down. They met up with the girls who had stopped. They were all standing in a short hallway with two doors at both ends. Alfred turned his back to the door that led to the next room so that he was facing his friends.
"You have just conquered your fear of death and the deceased. Now-" Alfred was interrupted by Max.
"Isn't that kind of the same thing?"
"Hey, I'm not the one who comes up with the lines; I just have to say them." He cleared his throat and started again, "Now on to the next room. Are you ready to face your fear of the dark?" He gave them a creepy smile and slowly opened the door to a pitch black room and beckoned his friends inside. They all slowly walked into the room and it's so dark that they couldn't even see their hand in front of their face.
"Don't you have like a flashlight or something?" Francessca asked.
Alfred laughed and Max grabbed onto the back of his shirt as she slightly stumbled. "That would ruin the whole idea, so no, I don't have one."
Francessca looked around even though she couldn't see anything, "So what do we do? Just walk around in the room while it's dark?"
"Why? Are you scared?" Alfred asked quietly.
"N-no, I'm not that scared of the dark." She tried to reach for Antonio's hand but she couldn't find him. "Uh, Antonio? Where are you?"
She tried turning around and looking but she still couldn't see anything even though her eyes were adjusting to the darkness. "Guys, where are you?"
No one answered her and she felt her heart start racing, where could they have gone? She started blindly feeling around for them, completely losing her sense of direction and disorientating herself.
"Hello?!" She kept running around and looking for her friends. "How big is this room?" She said to herself.
Her heart was beating quickly and her eyes darted around desperately, "Guys, this isn't funny. I need you to stop!" She continued running until she ended up running into a wall. She ran her hands along it, hoping to find something.
She felt something thick and sticky on the wall. She pulled her hands back in shock and looked down, but she couldn't tell what it was. She screamed and quickly backed up, falling in the process. She heard snickers and a door opened up to shine some light into the room. She looked down and saw that it looked like some fake blood, so she started to wipe it off on the floor, not wanting anymore to get on her.
"This isn't funny!" She yelled at her friends. That just caused them to bust out in laughter. Alfred held his stomach as he laughed and looked at Francessca, "I wish we could have seen your face, I bet it was great!"
"Oh, yeah, I bet…" Francessca muttered. Her friends tried to hold in their laughter as they walked over to her. Antonio held out his hand to help her up and Max tried to put on a straight face, "Okay, okay guys, that wasn't very nice of you." She looked up at the boys and burst out laughing again.
Francessca just scowled at her. "Let's just go to the next room." Alfred ended up handing her a rag that she could use to wipe off the blood from her hand and he tried not to laugh as he nodded, "Okay, let's go."
He led then out of the room and to the next door.