Spooky Story 2 - 'House'

Written: Early 2011.
This was the 'Successful' story. I.e., the one that was the gift.
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House

    “I don’t think you should go in there,” Germaine said.

Her boyfriend winked at her, and said, “It’s been abandoned for years, Germ. Nobody cares if we go in there anyway. S’not like the cops are gunna catch us.”

“Victor,” she replied, emphasising the second syllable, “… Fine.”

Victor grinned and grabbed Germaine’s hand, dragging her along as he went for the front door. “We’re so cool!” he said, a little over excited about sneaking into an abandoned house. The door, or rather the entire house, was rather ordinary. The last people to live there had moved out a few years ago, though, so there were a few cobwebs here and there. No-one knew why it had stood empty; although there were the usual guesses about demolition and infestations.

Victor turned the knob and pushed the door open. He’d discovered that the front door was unlocked a few days back when bored, although he had saved up exploring the house until he could impress his girlfriend.

Victor turned on the torch he had brought, and shone it around the entrance. It all looked… Normal. Empty, but normal. There was a hat stand in one corner, apparently left behind when the previous occupants had moved out.

Germaine came through the door behind Victor, and looked around. “I see you planned this properly for once,” she said, noting the torch.

“Yeah,” he replied, “Of course!” He shut the door behind Germaine, and the pair of them walked around the room. “Let’s check out the rest of the joint!”

It only took them about fifteen minutes take a peek in every room in the house – as well as a few cupboards and the oven. The last room they had to look at had an old desk in it – it was worn, and seemed to have had its legs broken and repaired several times.

Victor rifled through the desk drawers as Germaine paced around the room, scuffing her feet on the carpet. Suddenly her foot caught on it, and she stumbled and fell. “Ow!” she yelped, landing with a thud. Victor spun around and rushed to her.

“Are you okay?” he asked, concerned.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she replied. She sat up, and brushed off her legs. “My foot caught on the carpet some how.”

Victor shone the torch at Germaine’s feet, and saw that a chunk of carpet had bunched up. He looked closer, and then lifted up a large flap of carpet. Underneath it lay a trapdoor.

“Germ check it out!” he said, excited.

“What is i – oh my god, that’s awesome!” she replied.

“Hidden trapdoor, here we go!” said Victor, unable to contain his excitement.

“Wait, maybe we should,” started Germaine, as Victor pulled open the trapdoor.

“Come on!” he said, heading down immediately.

Germaine thought about it for a couple of seconds, before following cautiously.

The trapdoor’s ladder led down into a small corridor, that in turn led into a larger room. Victor and Germaine walked into the room, Victor shining the torch around. There were tables with random containers on them, filled with strange fluids, bizarre contraptions with no apparent use, what looked like torture devices, animal skulls, what might have been a human skull, and more.

“Holy crap,” said Victor, shining the torch around to uncover more and more strange things. There were no electronic lights in the room, but there were candles set on some of the tables.

“Is that a – eww,” said Germaine, pointing at an animal that was pickled in a jar. “We should tell the police about this, it might have been used to make drugs or something.”

“Probably, but then we’d have to say we snuck in here,” said Victor.

“We could just leave the trapdoor open and anonymously call them in,” said Germaine.

“I guess,” replied Victor. They walked around the room for a while, looking at all the strange stuff lying around, wondering what the devices were for or what the liquids were.

After about ten minutes of wandering, a voice came from behind them. “What are you doing here?”

Germaine gasped in shock, and Victor whirled around, shining the torch at an old, kind looking man. The man moved his arm to block the glare from the torch.

“I, um, we were, uh,” said Victor, his heart racing.

“You snuck into the old abandoned house and found your way down here?” asked the old man, speaking slowly and precisely.

“Ye-yeah,” stammered Victor.

The old man clicked his fingers; in the distance, Victor heard the trapdoor slamming shut. “How’d you do that?” asked Victor.

The old man clicked with both hands at once. Something under the tables grabbed their ankles, and dragged them to the ground. “I’ll teach you both a little lesson about trespassing,” said the old man.

With another click of his fingers, they were both knocked unconscious.

Victor awoke groggily some time later. He stared up at the ceiling, lit by flickering candles, before looking down to see a skeleton sitting in a chair opposite him.

“What the hell!” he said, standing up and knocking his chair over.

“Huh,” said the skeleton, some how. “What’s going – was that you Victor?” The skeleton’s voice sounded just like Germaine, somehow.

“Germ? Is that you?” Victor said, staring at the skeleton.

It turned its skull towards him, and said “Vict – AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

Victor instinctively moved his hands towards his ears to block out the noise, but as they moved into his eyesight he noticed that they were skeletal. “What the – AAAAAH!”

They both screamed for several minutes. When they finished screaming, Victor looked down at his empty ribcage and said, “Wait, how are we talking?”