This is part one of this little Finn & Slip story.

004: Dark

Genre: Light Horror

Rating: K

Characters: Finn & Slip

Slip squeezed Finn's hand tightly as they slowly made their way through the haunted house. He didn't know why he had let Nines and Zeroes tease him into coming on this dumb trip. He hated these kinds of things; he didn't understand what was so fun about being scared out of your pants.

The haunted house attraction had been up for about a week by this point. Everyone in school had been talking about it; it was a three-story house supposedly packed top to bottom with the most horrifying things imaginable.

Slip had sworn off of going almost immediately but Nines and Zeroes started in on him, calling him a baby and a wimp. Finn stepped in to defend him and then they teased him about that too.

Slip had to defend himself.

A lot of good that did him since he ended up in the haunted house anyway surround by all sorts of spooky noises and things ready to jump out at him. He hated this.

"You can just keep your eyes closed you know," Finn pointed out to him as they slowly made their way up through the first floor. This floor seemed to be made up to look like a crazy little girl's dollhouse with all the broken and dirty doll parts were thrown about.

"Yeah, so they can just make fun of me some more," Slip complained.

They came around to a corner that was covered in long white drapes. With his free hand Slip traced the outline of the glowstick inside his front pocket. For chasing away monsters the person at the front had said.

Finn shook his head. "I don't know why you gotta prove yourself to them. It's okay to be scared."

"I'm not scared, not really."

"Okay then," Finn shifted so that he was now behind Slip, "then you go first."

Slip tensed, his feet rooting themselves in place. "What!?" He looked back at Finn and then forward again at the drapes. He narrowed his eyes trying to adjust to the dark light of the hallways, to see if there were moving shadows in front of them.

He kept thinking that he saw something but he couldn't be sure.

"Come on Slip," Finn whispered. "We can't wait here all day, the next group will be coming soon."

"I...I..." Slip took a deep breath and gripped Finn's hand tightly. "Okay, let's go."

He moved through the hall, pulling Finn along with him, smacking each drape before pushing it out of the way. There was nothing yet, but the hall kept getting smaller and smaller. Soon Slip and Finn had to walk single file instead of side by side.

"They're trying to crush us to death!"

"They can't really hurt us."

Slip wasn't so sure about that. He inched them further and further until he heard a far-off scream, one that didn't come from the sound system. Slip stood there just before what he assumed to be the last drape and swallowed. Finn moved closer and pressed against his back. Slip felt his heart jump into his throat.

"Come Slip, you got this."

He took a deep breath and pushed the last drape out of the way. They were met with a seemingly empty and very dark room. There were even more broken and discarded toys laying all over the floor and mini bed. There was a pair of double doors on the other side.

Finn was still pressed against his back and peeked around the room. "Well...this doesn't look so bad."

Slip nodded slowly; things certainly looked okay. For now.

He inched them inside the room and they looked around, their hands still clasped together. As they walked through the room nothing seemed to pop out, or move, or try to grab them. Slip actually started to feel at ease. Maybe this whole place would be so bad after all.

Then he heard the scream again. Slip clutched onto Finn's arm and Finn tensed as well. Still, though, Finn patted Slip's arm, trying to calm him down.

"It's...It's okay..."

"Let's just get out of here," Slip said quickly and started toward the double doors.

Then, from the darkness through the double doors, stepped a tall and gangly figure. It was dressed completely in black, it's face was a stark white color with blood streaking down its face. It had no eyes that Slip could see and it was holding a bloody axe.

Slip screamed and, without thinking about it, he kicked at the creature. The thing groaned and doubled over, dropping the bloody axe.

"Slip!" Finn yelled. "I think you kicked him in the nuts!"

After that little incident in the doll room, Finn and Slip were escorted out of the haunted house by one of the security guards. Slip was completely red-faced. Finn tried to reassure him that everything was okay but Slip wasn't listening.

Nines and Zeroes would never let him live this down.