Holiday Specials

Chapter Two of Halloween

A terrible, terrible moan filled the first floor with a rush of fear. I clutched Drew’s arm tighter, squeezing my eyes shut.

  “We can’t stay here forever,” Spence growled. We still stood in the front room.

  “But we know we can’t go in that room,” Drew nodded to the left. “Or the kitchen.”

  “That leaves the stairs,” I whispered. I was in denial that this whole thing was real. It was just exceptionally scary.

  “Then we go upstairs,” Spence said.

  Drew hesitated. “I heard screams up there, too…..”

  “There’re screams everywhere!” I pointed out hotly.

  Ignoring my outburst, Drew said, “Wouldn’t it seem more logical to look for an exit downstairs?”

  “That’s a little obvious,” I said.

  Spence nodded. “Ally’s right. If this thing is as good as advertised, then the exit’s not gonna be out in the open. I say we go upstairs.”

  “Wait.” I tentatively walked toward a chair and snapped off one of the legs. If this mansion really was real, I was gonna need backup. If it wasn’t, I would gladly pay for the damage. You just couldn’t be too careful.

  When I walked back to the safety of the boys, they were giving me wild looks. “What?” I snapped.

  Drew frowned disapprovingly, not saying anything. But I noticed his hand slide to the handle of his whip.

  Spence was giving me a cheeky grin. “C’mon, Buffy,” he said, taking my arm.

  The stairs whined in protest as we tip-toed upward.

  “They’re gonna hear us coming from a mile a while,” I hissed.

  Drew turned back to shoot me a glare. “Would you rather me run upstairs into their suspecting hands?”

  “We don’t even know who the ‘we’ are yet, Drew,” I pointed out.

  Drew turned his back immediately and started walking.

  I looked back at Spence. “Do we?”

  He looked hesitant. “Well, it’s a little obvious, isn’t it?”

  “What is?”

  “Jeeze, buddy, can’t you see she’s scared enough?” Drew growled. “Just let her be ignorant!”

  I was getting even more scared by the comments thrown around me. “Ignorant of what, Drew? What do you think these people are screaming over?”

  My brother didn’t answer me, instead concentrating on the staircase that never seemed to end.

  “What?” I whispered to Spence.

  “Zombies,” he mouthed after a minute.

  My blood ran cold. Of course it would be zombies. Zombies were advertised, after all. What wasn’t advertised was the off chance that they would be real!

  I really wished I was Spence’s friend who ditched him last minute. Could he have known, somehow? But that was impossible! How could anyone foresee this, this….catastrophe! This horror!

  As we neared the top of the stairs, I held my breath. Anything could happen in this moment. We could be walking into anything. An awful scene might be unfolding before us, and I knew that whatever I was about to see I would never get out of my head.