The House Of Hallow’s Eve
The day is Halloween. The sky is darkening there are TRICK-OR-TREATERS are all over the neighborhood. The houses are decorated with all sorts of vile objects and symbols. Up and down the streets there are WITCHES, DEMONS and MONSTROSITIES of all kinds. The night of frivolity has almost finished for most, but there are a few who still have the spirit to gather.
At the end of the road there is a gate. Leading to a large black house. It rests on a hill as if the slightest push of an infant could cause the whole house to topple. It is 3 stories tall and no one has been in or out of that house since it’s rich owner died 100 years ago. The walls have decayed and there is a rotten feel to the aging structure. The windows have all long been shattered and the remaining hinges CREEK in the strong wind. This ominous house looms over the neighborhood like an evil tyrant watching his subjects. A tall stone wall surrounds the house, protecting it’s ancient master.
Standing at the old, rusted gates are 2 young boys, Luke and John. Luke is wearing a ninja costume. He is almost camouflaged wearing a full black costume. A SHIMMER comes from his small, plastic sword. The stickers on it are reflecting the glo-sticks on his waist. John is wearing vampire costume. He has a dark cape, pale face and fangs, GLISTENING with blood.
The 2 boys are staring at the rusted handlebars of the gate.
JOHN
“Do you think we should open it?”
LUKE
“Well duh! It’s a haunted house! We have to go inside!”
JOHN
“Alright then, you open it.”
LUKE
“You open it!”
JOHN
“No you!”
The 2 boys argue for a little while until they finally agree to both open half the door.
LUKE
“Ok...GO!”
John PUSHES his door but Luke does not. Instead, he pushes John through and laughs as his friend FALLS on the ground.
JOHN
“Hey! That wasn’t very nice!”
Luke sticks his tongue out and walks through the gate. He SWINGS it shut as he does. It SQUEAKS as it SWINGS back into it’s ancient spot. It closes with a CLANG!
JOHN
“Uh oh! We’re stuck in here now!”
LUKE
“Don’t worry! This thing doesn’t lock remember?”
When Luke tries to open the gate again, he cannot. He yanks on the handle and then pushes, again and again. The gate simply squeaks and clangs but refuses open.
JOHN
“Oh no! We’re like, 20 blocks away from our houses! What are we going to do?”
Luke remains silent, he does not say anything for a while and then a grin appears on his face.
LUKE
“Well we do need someplace to stay and we were going to go into the house anyways right?”
John suddenly realizes what his friend is trying to suggest. A look of terror appears on it’s face. He begins to sweat.
JOHN
“NO! WE ARE NOT STAYING INSIDE THE HOUSE! IT’S HAUNTED!”
LUKE
“Pfffft! It’s just a story made up to scare little kids away. There’s nothing scary in there.”
Luke is already walking through the beaten path towards the house.
LUKE
“Come on John! It’ll be fun! We’ll have the whole house to ourselves!”
JOHN
“Ourselves? There might be ghosts or something! I’m not staying with a bunch of scary ghosts!”
John stayed, rooted to the spot an determined to stay as far away from the creepy house as possible.
LUKE
“Ghosts? Come on! Stop being such a baby. The worst thing that lives in there could be in there is rats or spiders. You’re not afraid of those are you?”
John whimpered and tried to MUMBLED something incoherent.
LUKE
“Man you are such a girl! I can’t believe I went trick-or-treating with someone’s 5 year old sister!”
John, upon hearing this, seemed to want to prove his courage now and started to WALK towards the house without a word.
LUKE
“That’s the spirit John!”
The 2 boys reached the double doors which guarded the house’s entrance. It was covered with cobwebs and dust. Luke reached for the doorknob, being the first person to do so in decades, and OPENED the doors. It opened and a GUSH of aged, musty air rushed out to meet the new arrivals. Both the boys went into violent fits of COUGHING.
Afterwards, they entered the entrance hall. It was styled with large gothic symbols and statues. A gargoyle sat on a pedestal in the center of the hall. Behind it was another double door identical to the one they entered through. Beside the door were 2 large spiral staircases, reaching up into the sky. The boys did not realize how much danger they were in yet.
JOHN
“Where do you think those staircases go?”
John looked around, his eyes wide with a mix of terror and amazement.
LUKE
“Well there’s got to be a place we can sleep here, why don’t you go up the right staircase and I’ll go up the left one.”
Luke began to walk up the long staircase.
LUKE
“Man! We should come here more often, there’s so many things!”
Luke examined a statue of a man’s head. He then continued rapidly up the staircase. Every STEP could be heard and ECHOED throughout the hall.
John didn’t like splitting up but he knew he had no choice so he slowly and nervously WENT up the stairs. He thought that maybe they would end up meeting each other on the second floor.
No such luck. He ended up staring at a long hallway with a dead end. Several doors lined the interior of the hallway. Each of them withering away. One door did not have a doorknob anymore. John assumed that this was the one and only owner of the mansion. He looked up and he could see a massive whole in the roof, but nothing under it. He looked up at it and saw what seemed to be an engraving, it said “Albert Rufenstein 1890 - 2000" and under it, “Luke Rufenstein 1990-2000".
Suddenly the WIND outside seemed to become furious. They PUSHED the house, forcing it’s frame to the limit of it’s endurance. He heard CRACKING and SLPINTERING outside. Frightened but curious, he decided to try and get a view of the outside and went inside the door without the doorknob. Outside the window, he could see SWIRLING and wild lights, voices SHOUTED at him in undecipherable languages. He saw the ghostly faces of a thousand souls flashing before him. John tried to scream but then he realized he couldn’t breathe. The whole world became a massive HURRICANE.
John awoke and found himself inside the hospital bed. His parents were looking at him worriedly but relieved that he had finally awoke.
MOM
“John! You shouldn’t have wandered off! We were so worried about you. What possessed you to go to that silly house?”
JOHN
“Well...me and Luke were-“
DAD
”Who’s Luke, son?”
JOHN
“He’s...my friend. Don’t you remember? I met him at...”
John stopped when he realized he didn’t remember where or when he had met his friend. He didn’t even remember meeting him at the gate because now he was sure that he had been with his parents the whole time.
JOHN
“Well...how did you find me? Did you see what happened inside the house?”
MOM
“Inside the house? We found you passed out on the porch of that ghastly house.” his mother continued looking at him with a worried look.
DAD
“It’s a good thing we found you when we did, that house was set for demolition at midnight.”
LUKE
“What?!?!”
John jumped up and looked out the window of the hospital. He could see the remains of the broken house.
DAD
“Hey wait a minute, didn’t that old man used to have a son or something that used to live there?”
The father suddenly remembered the old news he had heard years ago.
DAD
“Yeah, and they both died one day from a rotten part of the roof. The roof collapsed and crushed both of them. That happened years ago.”
John continued to look at the remains of the house and then, from the darkness under the remains of the roof, he could see Luke’s ghostly face looking back at him.
THE END
