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It was a dumb idea. A dumb, stupid idea which Nancy had no clue why she’d ever agreed to. To be perfectly honest, she wasn’t entirely sure whose idea it was. It could’ve been hers.
One week earlier, Robin and Nancy were watching Nightmare on Elm Street. Well, half watching, half arguing about who wouldn’t be able to sleep that night.
“You’re scared of everything, Robin!” Nancy said.
“Only stuff that’s real! Serial killers that kill you in your dreams aren’t real.” Robin said decisively. “And anyways, you can’t sleep on normal days. No way you’re getting to sleep tonight.”
It lasted a while, and come nightfall both girls fell fast asleep, and woke up happily in the morning. The bet was declared a tie, until someone mentioned the creepy, old house that rested on the other side of town. And now, on Halloween night, Nancy found herself driving towards a murder house, all for a stupid bet.
Who could last the longest, and make it through the night without leaving.
The story of the Creel House was a bit of an urban legend in Hawkins, mostly told by fifty year olds recalling the day they heard the news of the massacre, or school children hoping to scare their friends during a sleepover. In March of 1959, a man name Victor Creel murdered his wife and two children, breaking their bones and removing their eyes. It was gruesome, and unlike Freddy Krueger, it was real.
But Nancy wasn’t afraid. Victor Creel had long since been locked up, and any trace of the murder itself had been cleaned. She was confident she could make it through the night, and almost as confident that Robin couldn’t.
Robin’s bike rested outside the stairs leading up to the tattered house. She was already here. The front door had been boarded up, but at some point in the seventies either teenagers or squatters pulled out the nails, and no one had ever bothered to fix it.
“Hey, Robin!” Nancy called out as she stepped inside the house. It felt just as cold as outside, the wind rattling the already broken windows. “I saw your bike, I know you’re here… somewhere.” She scoped out the area. It was bright enough to see, the sun had not yet set, but soon she’d need a flashlight.
Everything was covered in cobwebs, but still the Creel’s real, actual furniture rested in the place it had been during that fateful night twenty seven years ago. The armchair collected dust, books rotted on shelves, and the old grandfather clock in the hallway no longer ticked.
“Robin, this isn’t funny!” Nancy huffed, heading into the living room in search of her friend. “You’re seriously going to make me search this whole house?”
“Just the living room.” Robin’s hands grabbed her by the shoulders. Nancy rolled her eyes, she’d been hiding behind the curtain.
“Did you seriously think that would scare me?”
“Worth a try.” Robin smiled. She sat down, the chair exhaling dust and dirt as she did. “So, ground rules. No leaving the house after midnight. Winner has to stay until the sun rises. If we both chicken out - which won’t happen - then we both lose.”
“So even if you run home screaming at midnight, I still have to stick it out until the morning? How is that fair?” Nancy said.
“Because the winner will just leave immediately after the loser leaves.” Robin replied. “I’m looking forward to being here alone, though. I can catch up on reading.”
“Yeah, in your dreams.” Nancy set her bag down, rummaging through the various snacks, flashlights and blankets she’d packed.
Once she’d decided everything was set up, the fun could begin. Robin figured that ghost stories were the best way to pass the time, with no electricity meaning no way to watch movies. She told a few, most of them pretty predictable. ‘The guy was warning her about the murderer in her backseat’, ‘the woman had been dead for one hundred years’, etcetera. Nancy was able to predict the twist pretty early on, leaving Robin frustrated.
“It’s not my fault you’ve heard every single story already.” she grunted, switching off the flashlight in defeat. “You tell one.”
“Okay…” Nancy sighed. “But this one is true.”
“Yeah, sure.” Robin winked. And yeah, most of the time scary stories started with an ‘I promise this is true’. But in this case, Nancy wasn’t lying.
“So, you know the Lab on Cornwallis? They run the electricity.” Nancy said.
“You wouldn’t think so, with the amount of power cuts Hawkins get. But yeah, I know of the Lab.” Robin replied.
“Well, back in the sixties they used to do to experiments on people, MK Ultra. I learnt about it in middle school and basically became obsessed. I was convinced that they’d never actually stopped.” Nancy explained. “There’s articles in the library about this woman, Terry Ives. She sued the Lab and accused them of stealing her baby, because the baby had superpowers and could fight the Russians with them. She actually just had a miscarriage, and probably psychosis or something. She lost the court case.”
“…But you believed her?”
“I was eleven years old and gullible, okay?” Nancy said. “Anyways, one night I decided I was going to find out, once and for all, whether Terry Ives was telling the truth.”
“Let me guess,” Robin rolled her eyes. “It was a dark, stormy Halloween night.”
“Actually, it was a pretty clear night in early September.” Nancy said. “The Lab was surrounded by a huge fence, with barbed wire at the top. There was no way I could get in, but with a pair of binoculars and a good angle I could get a pretty clear view. The place was surrounded by guards with guns, and military vehicles.”
“Pretty secure for an electricity company.”
“Exactly.” Nancy continued. “After an hour or two, the sun started setting. Most of the staff had already gone home, and all that was left to see were the night guards. I thought my mission was bust, and I was about to head home, but that’s when the lights started.”
Robin leaned in closer, taken in. “Lights?”
“Every light in the building began to flicker. It started in one of the lower floors, one single light, that spread through the entire building, eventually it even got to my flashlight.” she jolted the flashlight she was holding around, causing it to flicker slightly. “Every part of Hawkins I could see went black.”
“A power-cut?”
Nancy nodded. “Every part of Hawkins except the Lab. As if all the electricity that was used to power Hawkins was being re-routed to that one building. The flickering got more intense, until eventually it stopped flashing all together, just getting brighter, and brighter. Blindingly bright until… everything stopped.” Nancy switched her flashlight off. “All the lights cut off for a few seconds, before powering back on. As if it had never happened at all.”
“Maybe it was something to do with the electrics? They were, I don’t know, testing the system? They are an electricity company.” Robin suggested.
“I thought that, too. I went back to the library the next day, looked up anything on power-cuts or electrical companies. I couldn’t find anything describing what I saw.” Nancy said. “Never found out what it was. Okay, maybe there’s no superpowered Russian-fighting child in there, but there’s definitely more to that Lab than the government tell us.”
“Spooky.” Robin sighed. “But I still think my ‘man with a hook hand’ story was better.”
“But the thing is, Robin. I’m never going to think about a man with a hooked hand clawing my face off. But every time you go past that Lab, you’ll always have a part of your brain thinking about what’s inside it from now on.” Nancy smiled. “I won.”
“Hm.” Robin conceded. “But you still haven’t won the real challenge.”
Nancy looked around the room, a chill overcoming her as she reminded herself of the event that took place almost three decades ago, perhaps in this exact room. The walls creaked, it was only natural for a house this old and unkept. But still, Nancy had to admit, if she heard even a hint of footsteps, she would be running.
“Getting scared, Wheeler?” Robin teased, reading Nancy’s body language like a book.
“No. Just… cold.” Nancy faked a shiver. Bang. The front door shuddered, a much stronger force hitting it than just the wind. “What was that?”
Robin shuffled closer to Nancy, now also spooked. The door banged again, before being forced open by someone on the other side.
“Wh-who is that?” Robin called out, shining the flashlight into the hallway. A figure appeared, shielding their eyes from the light. As they got nearer, Nancy made out a familiar green and silver varsity jacket.
“Jason?” Nancy recognised him from every article she’d had to write about him. Varsity football and basketball captain, Hawkins High’s golden boy. Going to that school, it was impossible not to know him. Behind him, a small, blonde girl followed. Nancy wasn’t used to seeing her without a cheerleader’s uniform on, but it was undoubtedly Jason’s girlfriend, Chrissy Cunningham.
“Oh, look, haunted houses have nerds now.” Jason grunted in a monotone voice. Chrissy smiled politely. “What are you even doing here?”
“Could ask you the same thing.” Robin stood up, a bitter tone in her voice.
“Can I not take my girl on a nice Halloween date? This is a popular make out spot.” Jason grinned, smug and full of himself.
“Ew, why?” Robin grimaced.
“Chicks dig being scared, Robin, you should know this. Fear is the strongest aphrodisiac.”
“Can you spell aphrodisiac?” Nancy bit back.
Jason rolled his eyes, throwing his bag on top of Robin’s sleeping back. “Unless you two are here to get freaky, you should sling your hook. Don’t want people to talk, now, do we?”
Robin huffed, picking up the parts of her belongings that hadn’t been sat on by Jason. “Come on, Nancy. Challenge rendered null and void.”
Nancy glared at the boy digging his way through a bag of chips she was fairly certain were hers. Why should he have all the fun? Why should he get to walk around expecting to get everything because it’s easier to give it to him?
“We can’t let him win.” Nancy whispered to Robin. “You’re scared of a seventeen year old boy, but not a haunted house?”
Robin furrowed her brow. “I’m not scared of him, Nancy, I just don’t wanna be around him.”
“Then we won’t be! It’s a big house, there’s other places to go.” Nancy argued. “And he won’t be here all night. They’ll make out for a bit, and then he’ll get bored, or Chrissy will get bored. She doesn’t even look like she wants to be here anyway.”
Robin glanced at the two athletes, and back at Nancy. “Fine… but one more dumb comment from him and I’m out of here.”
They found themselves in an upstairs bedroom, most likely belonging to the parents. Both Robin and Nancy hesitated to sit on the bed, the same thought running their minds. A murderer slept here.
After the initial creepiness wore off, the night went fairly smoothly. Robin had brought along a deck of cards and taught Nancy a game she played as a kid. They filled up on junk food, and eventually ended up reading separately.
“Jesus, you two are boring.” Jason leaned against the doorframe.
“Shouldn’t you be with your girlfriend?” Robin replied.
“What? And miss out on reading time!” Jason feigned excitement. “Calm down, Buckley. She’s in the bathroom, I’ll be gone in a minute.”
“You could be gone now.”
Jason’s face fell, going from the playful delighted look he got from mocking people to the anger he felt when they mocked back. “I’ll see you on Monday. Don’t forget that.”
He turned around, heading out, but stopped in his tracks as a huge clang shook the house. The two girls jumped up in their seats. “What was that?” Robin exclaimed.
“It sounded like a clock.” Nancy replied, remembering the creepy clock that sat in the hallway. But it didn’t work anymore. It couldn’t be.
“Chrissy probably just dropped something.” Jason said, heading further into the hallway. They heard his footsteps cascading down the stairs, and Robin glanced back at Nancy, questioning whether to follow him.
Before either of them could make a decision, they heard Jason yell. “Fuck! Nancy, Robin!”
It was probably a dumb prank, but it wasn’t everyday Jason Carver had that much fear in his voice. Nancy ran down the stairs, Robin following close behind. Jason was hunched over in the hallway, Chrissy in his arms. At first glance it looked as if she’d fainted, but when Nancy got closer, she saw her arm twisted in a way that shouldn’t be possible. Every bone looked cracked, and her eyes were blood red. They weren’t even there.
Robin muttered the name Victor Creel. But he wasn’t here. He couldn’t be. As far as Nancy knew he was locked up in the asylum in West Hawkins. This wasn’t a movie, people don’t break out on Halloween night to kill teenagers. It just doesn’t happen.
Jason scrambled to the phone on the chest of drawers beside him, attempting to dial 911. “Fuck- it’s not working, why isn’t it working?”
“Th-there’s no electricity.” Nancy stammered, unable to take her eyes off the girl laying lifeless beneath her feet. She had never really spoken to Chrissy before, but she’d walked the same halls as her every single day. Smiled politely as they passed each other, or borrowed a pencil when it was needed. She seemed nice, and she didn’t deserve this. Then again, who did?
“There’s a payphone about half a mile from here.” Robin said, reaching for the door handle. She jiggled it, it wouldn’t budge. After a few more tries she ended up putting all her strength into opening the door, but still it wouldn’t open. It was as if the door had been fused to the wall.
“Fucking hell, Robin, it’s not that hard.” Jason bit, joining her in pulling at the door. It still didn’t move.
“Find something to smash a window.” Nancy suggested, picking up a heavy metal ornament from a bookcase. The window to the living room was completely boarded up. Jason wrapped his hands around the thin piece of wood, once again pulling at it only for it to not move at all. It looked like the kind of wood little kids smash in karate class to look impressive. It wasn’t just a case of the door being jammed anymore.
Something didn’t want them to leave.
Jason ran his hands through his head, looking like a lost deer in headlights. “I- I don’t understand.” he stated. “Did you two do this? Is this some kind of sick joke?”
“How could we possibly do this, Jason?” Robin said.
“Well someone did! Chrissy’s…” he trailed off, glancing at the doorway, one mangled hand still visible from the living room. “Someone’s in here.” he marched out of the room on a mission to find someone Nancy was convinced didn’t actually exist.
“I don’t get how he couldn’t open the door, or the window.” Robin shook her head.
Nancy had an idea. But it seemed too ridiculous to say out loud, especially to Jason. She’d never really been against the supernatural, rather taken the stance that until she saw some actual evidence of it existing, she’d always be skeptical. This seemed like more than enough evidence, however.
“Come on, we better follow him. You know what happens when people split up.” Nancy said, taking Robin by the wrist and following Jason’s path.
They found him in an upstairs hallway, shining a flashlight into every nook and cranny to no avail. He called out every now and then, with no answer.
“Let’s find a different way out of here.” Nancy said, following the large, determined footsteps of a man who was almost definitely not listening. “It’s a big house, I’m sure there’s a window that we can get open.”
“Go, then.” Jason ordered. “I’m not leaving until I find who did this.”
“We’re not just leaving you!” Nancy argued. It was probably idiotic, this guy had never once showed any empathy or kindness towards Nancy nor Robin. But that didn’t matter. She wasn’t going to leave him to die over petty high school drama.
“Guys, look.” Robin’s eyes were fixated on an old office room. “I thought the electricity didn’t work.”
Nancy turned her head towards the office, a small glow emanating from inside. She let Jason take the lead, with no real weapon on her and not as much confidence that she could take on whatever Jason was looking for. He ushered the two inside after deciding it was clear, and all they found was a bedside lamp. The electricity buzzed, the way it does when the voltage is too high. But the lamp wasn’t particularly bright, in fact it almost looked too dim. It flickered, and then switched off completely.
Nancy had seen this before.
“It’s moving!” Nancy followed the light into the hallway, the overhead light now flickering. Every time a light switched off, another one turned on. Jason marched on forwards. Neither girl had as much confidence.
“Are we sure it’s a good idea to follow it?” Robin asked. Jason scoffed, turning the corner where the lights had gone. Nancy took a step forwards before feeling a hand grab at her wrist. “Seriously, Nancy. This is a terrible idea.”
“I know! But I can’t just let him die.” Nancy replied. “You don’t have to come.”
“And be on my own? No way.” Robin rolled her eyes, sighed a deep, dramatic breath. “Fine. But if I die because of that man-”
“-Feel free to haunt him.”
The hallway led to an attic, and Nancy’s heart began pumping faster and faster as she climbed the steep stairs. She was always terrified of her own attic as a child, dark and full of spiders. Dark and spiders were a guarantee in this house, it was whatever else lay up there that terrified her now.
The attic opened up into a large room. An old rocking chair swayed back and forth, a piano collected dust, and the single light that hung above the empty floorboard glowed a dim orange.
“Hello?” Jason yelled out. Robin grabbed Nancy’s hand, startled by the sudden noise. Nancy didn’t dare let go.
Jason’s flashlight began to glow brighter, to the point where had turned his face away from the light. He flicked the button a few times, but the light only got brighter and brighter. It spread to Robin’s flashlight, and then to Nancy’s.
A wave of deja vu washed over Nancy. Whatever had happened in that Lab on Cornwallis over seven years ago was happening again. Right here. Which meant that any second now, the lights would turn off. The real question was why.
Jason’s flashlight thudded as it hit the ground, his arm dropping to his side with a fair bit of force.
“Jason, wh-” before Nancy could even finish the word, Jason’s body slammed into the ceiling, lifted into the air by an invisible force. He was too high to reach, and even if she could reach him, what could she do? Robin leaned into Nancy after the first crack of a broken bone, shielding the view with Nancy’s shoulder. Nancy couldn’t tear her eyes away from it, watching it all happen in what felt like slow motion. After every bone was dealt with, the eyes caved in and Jason dropped to the floor. Neither girl felt the need to say anything. The clock downstairs was busy talking, however. This time, it clanged twice.
Robin took Nancy’s wrist once again and pulled her away from the fresh, new crime scene. They stumbled down the attic stairs, and then the main stairs before arriving back at the place where Chrissy lay. The floor underneath her now had a large gash, as if it had been cut with a knife. It seemed to glow, pulsating a reddish-orange colour that neither girl wanted to think about as they were too busy focusing on how to get the fuck out of here. Nancy pounded at the front door one last time before concluding it was completely useless.
“Th-there must be a back door, right? Or-” she turned back around to see Robin staring into the distance. “Robin?…”
Robin winced a little, snapping back into reality. Nancy felt her heart skip a beat. “Sorry, I just- I feel really weird.” she put her hand to her temple, wincing again.
“Please…” Nancy whimpered, begging whoever was listening to not take Robin from her. But Robin’s arm dropped just as Jason’s did, and Nancy watched all the light leave her eyes, literally. What just a few seconds ago had been an ocean blue, was now grey. Her breath quickened. Nancy had about thirty seconds before it was… over.
She scanned the room. The door was stuck, the windows were boarded up, and Chrissy’s body was just a few feet away. The grandfather clock stood proud right behind Robin. It would probably clang three times now, counting its victories. She grabbed the metal ornament she’d wanted to smash the window with. She had no clue if it would do anything, but it was the only chance she had. She plunged it deep into the clock face, the minute hand slicing the palm of her hand. She winced, but dug deeper.
Robin gasped out a choked breath behind her, and Nancy only just had enough time as she dropped to the ground, limbs intact and eyes still there and blue again. She clutched onto Nancy’s shirt like it was the only thing keeping her alive, looking around the room frantically.
“It’s okay.” Nancy fell to the floor with Robin. “It’s okay, I got you.”
The front door clicked open. Whatever force had been holding it in place was gone. Nancy swung Robin’s arm over her shoulder, using every bit of strength she had left in her to drag Robin out of the house.
She squinted at the rising sun, and realised the bet that now felt like a lifetime away was officially considered a draw. They’d won.