Seventeen
Eli
I had never been to a haunted house before.
I knew that just like in horror movies, the 'monsters' were just actors in costume and makeup. Since I knew that there was no threat I had nothing to fear. The whole point of a haunted house was to be scared but since I didn’t believe that I would be, I never had any desire to go to one.
However, a haunted house had recently opened in our town and tonight it was doing a discount for school students.
They probably thought since it was a school night that most parents would not let their child go despite the discount.
What parent sends their kids to go be scared all night when they have school in the morning?
Apparently a lot of parents because it looked as if every student in town had shown up.
The line to get into the building was out of the door and deep into the parking lot.
Nonetheless, my friend group insisted that we wait for the estimated time of two hours.
We had been standing in line for almost an hour and a half and I was tired of it. I, as well as many other people, sat on the ground while we waited. I found a small patch of dirt and was occupying myself by drawing in it with my finger.
Bella and Ricky were arguing about which had a better scare factor: ghosts or vampires.
"How could you possibly tell me with a straight face that vampires are scary?" Bella said in utter disbelief. "Are you okay in the head?"
"Are you okay in the head?" Ricky tapped his finger against his temple aggressively. "Vampires have fangs and suck your blood. That automatically puts them above all monsters."
"Ghosts can possess you, Ricky. I think that's worse. Are you saying that if you saw a ghost right now you wouldn't be terrified?"
"Not as scared as I would be if I saw a vampire.” Ricky then turned to his girlfriend. “Kailey, you agree with me, right?"
Kailey was watching me draw figures in the dirt as she sat next to me. She sighed heavily, clearly over this conversation because Bella and Ricky had been debating for over ten minutes. "You won't like my answer."
Ricky’s jaw dropped. "You think ghosts are scarier than vampires?"
"I think vampires are hot."
Bella and Ricky paused in a moment of confusion. They glanced at each other, then at Kailey. A few seconds later they both broke into laughter. Kailey pressed her lips together before she started laughing herself, and I couldn’t help but laugh too.
"You watch too many vampire shows and movies," Bella said between laughs. "Eli, what do you think?"
I had just finished drawing a horse in the dirt. Well, it looked more like a deformed cow than a horse. I wasn't an artist in the slightest, but I was proud of my horse-cow.
"The only monster that could come close to scaring me is clowns," I said. Some would argue that clowns aren’t monsters, but I fully disagreed. Clowns appear in horror movies just like zombies appear in horror movies. They wouldn’t show up in the movies if they weren’t monsters.
"So you scare yourself?" asked Justin.
Justin had just arrived because he wanted to meet us at the haunted house rather than to go there with us. We didn't know the reason why, which was fine because I couldn't care less. I was hoping that he was going to skip out on us.
"There's only one scary-looking person here and it's you," I said, my tone dull.
Justin laughed condescendingly. "I'm surprised you're even here. I figured that out of everyone in the group you'd be the one to chicken out."
"Out of all of us here, you'll be the one running scared." The words flew out of my mouth despite that I didn't actually believe that he would. If I had to put money on the one whom I thought would be terrified tonight, I'd say Kailey. However, for the sake of needing a retort, I told a fib.
"Can you two not bicker for five minutes?" Ricky was exhausted with the constant fighting between Justin and me.
Justin ignored Ricky and kept his focus on me. “I guess we'll see."
Yeah, we’d see.
I focused my attention back onto my drawing in the dirt. Even though I didn’t believe that it would be frightening, I was ready to go inside. Just because it might not be scary didn’t mean that it wouldn’t be fun. I needed something fun that night since I had been having a terrible day leading up.
School was long, to say the least. First, I got a C+ on a test. That was not a grade that I normally made and was definitely not what I was expecting from that particular test. Then, at lunch I accidentally dropped my food on the ground and a random teacher on lunch duty scolded me as if I dropped the food on purpose.
Finally, someone stole my favorite pencil.
Then I got home and had to hear my siblings' mouths whining about how I never got around to asking Javier about bringing them on the trip. In my defense, I never told them I would. I told Easton that I would think about it. I was still thinking about it, but only because I felt bad for them.
My aunt was also angry for no good reason.
I dropped a plastic cup on the ground and she acted like I had just shattered every one of her glass plates.
I thought that she wasn't going to let me go out tonight because of that, but she didn't care.
Her moods would flip in an instant sometimes and it gave me whiplash.
And to top it all off, I couldn't stop thinking about Javier.
I was still drawing in the dirt. I had turned my horse into a clown and my lack of skill in drawing made the clown look extra scary. A couple of minutes passed by as I played in the dirt.
My attention was suddenly captured by the mention of a name that belonged to the person that had been conveniently showing up at the right times. Kailey spotted them first. "Is that Javier and Paxton?"
"Javier's here?" My head rose in search of him.
Kailey nodded as she waved at them. It took them a minute to spot her, but when they did they began walking over to us.
"Why are you calling them over here?" I whispered in panic.
"I didn't!" Kailey raised her hands in defense. "I was just being friendly. If you really don’t want them to come over here then I guess I’ll-”
"No!" I said a little too loudly. The people in front and behind us turned their heads because of my sudden outburst. Embarrassed, I spoke more calmly. "No, it's fine. They're already coming over here."
Kailey smiled like she always did, Justin seemed disappointed as he watched Javier and Paxton walk toward us, and Ricky and Bella were giving me funny looks.
I shrugged at them and they shrugged back.
I wished that I could read minds because I couldn’t always read my friends’ faces.
I wanted to know what they were thinking.
"Hi guys," Paxton greeted with a toothy grin. He always seemed to be in a chipper mood. Everyone greeted the pair. "How long have you—"
"Where's Diane?" Justin interrupted.
Javier paused and pressed his lips together. After an awkward few seconds of staring, he answered Justin's rudely asked question. "She didn't want to come. She doesn’t like horror."
Justin frowned but he didn't say anything else. His want for Diane made me raise a brow. What was going on there?
Paxton side-eyed him but ultimately kept quiet. "How long have you all been out here?"
Bella checked her phone for the time. "Almost two hours."
"And you're still here?" Javier asked with a scoff. He turned around to see the long line behind us. "Do you really want to wait that long, Paxton? It's already nine."
It was the one night that the only haunted house in town gave discounts to students. Did they really not stop and think that there would be a ton of people here?
Paxton frowned. "If you want to come back another night, we can."
Another night when it would cost the full price to get in? Hell no, that made no sense. Suddenly, I had the urge to do something that I wouldn’t normally do.
"You can join us," I suggested. "We're almost to the front, so you won't have to wait much longer and you won’t have to come back."
Everyone looked at me as if I had grown an extra head. Even I was shocked with myself.
Paxton’s face lit up. "Really?"
I nodded as I stood up from the ground. I wiped the dirt off my shorts as I got rid of the drawing on the ground with my foot. "Sure, why not?"
"You guys are the best!" Paxton exclaimed before giving each one of us a high five.
Javier had a grin painted on his face too. He was just as surprised as I was at my offer. I didn't know what came over me, but it wasn’t that big of a deal. Sure, a couple of months ago I would have minded, but I felt a bit different about him now. I wouldn’t admit that to anyone, though.
After another twenty minutes it was finally our turn to go into the haunted mansion. I walked inside with no worries at all, just hope that it would be as realistic as possible.
I was stealing glances at everyone because I wanted to see who was genuinely scared and who wasn't. Bella was overly excited, so much so that she couldn't stop herself from bouncing as she walked. Kailey, Paxton, and Javi looked ready but not without a sprinkle of apprehension.
I was surprised by how Ricky looked. He was fine while we were waiting in line, but now he looked like he was about to shit his pants. I wouldn’t have expected that because he was the same Ricky that loved horror movies. Haunted houses and movies were practically the same thing.
"You seem scared,” I whispered with an accidental bump into his shoulder. It was getting darker as we walked down a long corridor, the light behind us fading as we continued onward. "It's just like watching a horror movie, but up close."
Ricky humphed. "Those are nowhere near the same."