Chapter Text
Three figures gathered round a lone candle, room dark around them, solemn looks on their faces. The red haired on, eyes invisible behind glasses brightly lit, turned to the holder of the candle and spoke:
“Avid, is this necessary? We can just turn the lights on.”
Turning around, the last of the three flicked on the lights, revealing three college students in a cramped dorm.
“Drift! Secret meetings need darkness! Someone could be spying on us!” Avid objected, still cradling his candle.
The one called Drift shrugged. “I don’t know man, the candle thing makes us look a lot more suspicious then being normal does.”
Avid looked to Shelby for assistance, but she simply raised an eyebrow at him.
Avid put his candle down on a desk, sighing mournfully. “Fine then. Let us commence the meeting.”
“I heard there was a pack of wolves running through a forest that weren’t there before.” Shelby put in quickly. “They could be the werewolves! Like, not just any werewolves, the werewolves!”
Drift tilted her head. “Not to shoot your idea down, but they could also just be wolves. Avid?”
“Scott’s a vampire.”
“My roommate is not a vampire, for the last time.” Shelby said, exasperated.
Drift cleared her throat. “There’s a rumor about a haunted house nearby. We could go check that out.”
“Ooh, that sounds good.” Then Shelby’s face fell. “But we don’t have a car.”
Avid’s eyes lit up. “We know somebody, who does, though.”
—
Apo Kuna was having a better day then usual, chatting with her girlfriend on the phone. Then one of her friends called her. She hung up. They called her again. She sighed and told Cherri she’d talk later, before picking up.
“Yes, Shelby?”
“Hey, Apo!” Apo knew just from the redheads voice that she wouldn’t be calling Cherri again today. “Are you busy right now?”
“Yes, but I feel like that doesn’t matter.”
“Weeeell, see we heard about this house with paranormal activity in it that we wanted to investigate, but we don’t have a car and you have a van and we were wondering if you could- “
“You want me to chauffeur you to a supposedly haunted house so you can snoop around. Isn’t that trespassing?”
“It’s not trespassing if no one lives there!” Drift chimed in from the background.
“Please, Apo?” Shelby was back again. Apo sighed and took her car keys out.
“I’ll be there in ten.”
—
Apo glanced behind her as she pulled up to the house. Her friends had piled into her van with an abnormal amount of flashlights. Avid had his “monster hunting kit” which consisted of garlic, crosses, salt, and other useless superstitious things.
Listening to them argue over the best way to repel a ghost, Apo rolled her eyes. She didn’t know why her friends insisted on insane things being real, but it didn’t mean she liked them less. Otherwise she wouldn’t be wasting gas on this.
“We’re here.” She called back to them as she pulled up to the house. “You guys have an hour, then we’re leaving.” She suddenly felt like a dad taking his kids on a road trip, despite being the second youngest of the quartet.
A chorus of thank you’s trailed off into the distance as Apo leaned back in her seat and pulled up a game on her phone. They better not hurt themselves messing around in there, she thought.
—
Drift and Avid huddled together as they crept down the hallway. Shelby led the way, eagerly waving her flashlight into the dark corners of the house.
“We’re looking for any paranormal activity, right?” Drift whispered. “What if we can’t see the ghosts?”
“It doesn’t have to be ghosts. It could be Bigfoot.” Shelby argued.
“Or vampires.” Avid added. “Like Scott.”
“For the last time Avid, he’s just pale!”
The insightful conversation was interrupted by a loud crash from a door ahead. Drift and Avid yelped in fright, clutching each other. Shelby gasped. “C’mon, that must be the ghost! We need evidence!”
Avid hesitated, then took a cross in one hand, salt in the other, and moved next to Shelby. Drift hesitated, then joined him.
“Three…” Shelby’s hand was on the doorknob.
“Two…” Avid tightened his grip on his defenses.
“One!” Drift flinched as the door was flung open.
Pale light from the fading day shone through a cracked window, barely illuminating the room. Cobwebs hugged every corner, dust settling on the floor. Scattered around the room was furniture and an upturned chair that seemed like the source of the noise.
The three slowly investigated the room, back to back to back. They looked around, then at each other, before each let out a private breath of relief.
“Well.” Avid chuckled nervously. “Looks like it was just some rickety WHAT THE HELL- “
The window shutters slammed shut, snuffing out the only source of light besides their flashlights, which began flickering intensely. Shelby turned back to the door they had just come through, only to find it somehow locked from the outside. Frantically trying to open it, she jumped at Drift’s hand in her shoulder. “Shelby.” The younger woman whispered.
The furniture in the room had begun swirling around a central point in the corner. A transparent horror took shape in the center of the tornado. It had no mouth or nose, only two bloodshot eyes with no pupils. An equally ghostly arrow was lodged through its skull, splattered with brain matter. It was covered in ragged, threadbare garments.
The thing raised its hand and screamed. The trio screamed with it as furniture hurled itself toward the amateur investigators.
Avid ducked, screaming as a chair slammed against the wall where his had just been. Drift tackled Shelby aside just as a desk smashed into the floor beside them.
The shattered furniture became like shrapnel, the three dodging death by inches. Avid rose from the floor and rammed the door with his shoulder, desperately trying to open it. Something crashed against his back, and he fell to the floor groaning.
As he watched splinters scratch at his friends from every direction, Avid had one thought: We’re all going to die.
—
Apo had almost beat her high score when screams echoed from within the house. Sitting up, she peered out of the car windows at the house.
Cursing as more crashes erupted from the second floor, she flung open her door and stomped inside. What have they gotten themselves into this time?
Navigating through the house, Apo slammed the door to the room open.
Her three friends stared at her, disheveled. The roof had partially collapsed, and furniture scraps were sprawled around the room.
“Apo! Thank god.” Avid leapt to his feet, wincing as his back moved. “Quick, the ghost disappeared, but we need to- “
“Ghost? Are you kidding me?” Apo stared at him. “The roof caved in. I told you the building wasn’t safe, you went in anyways, and you think the attic collapsing and furniture falling on you was a ghost?”
“No!” Shelby objected. “We’re serious! There was a ghost, right over there!”
Apo groaned, cataloguing her friends injuries. Avid’s back seemed bruised, judging from his careful movements, and all three of them were covered in scrapes and scratches. “I’m taking you all the the hospital.” She muttered as she herded the protesting trio out the door. “Ghosts. Right.”
As soon as the four stepped out the house, a vengeful spirit erupted in the room once more, furniture raised. If an otherworldly terror could be confused, this one would be, as it wondered where its prey disappeared to.
—
About a day later, long after Apo had gotten her idiots medical care and then home, footsteps padded down the driveway of the house. Well shined shoes were quickly departing from the no longer haunted house.
The owner of the shoes was a tall man, dressed in nicer clothes that were well pressed and fit him perfectly. A silver sword hung by his side, and white gloves covered the hands that dug a phone out of his pocket.
“Yes, the spirits been exorcised. I’m returning to base now, before…what do you mean, vacation?”