House Haunting on Halloween

All Hallows Eve, a perfect night for revenge.

Halloween, a night that represents candy and fun to some

and demons and witchcraft to others. While the children and adults alike walk

around the neighborhoods in costumes varying from rotting zombies to pretty

princesses, teens sit in their basement, summoning ghosts and performing

rituals, thinking they are too cool for trick or treating.

Which is exactly what makes this night the perfect night

for revenge.

We have been planning this for months. We all knew that

popularly obnoxious Finn would be throwing his annual Halloween party, not that

any of us had ever actually been invited.

It has been this way for years. We are considered the weird

kids.

We are the artists, theater kids, gamers, tech wizards,

pranksters, and sci-fi nerds. We may be weird, but we are not a group to be

messed with, and frankly, we are tired of being bullied.

It was time for us to have our revenge.

Everything was planned to the letter. We had an operative

on the inside, Maddy, who technically wasn’t one of the “weird kids” but was

the older sister of one. She was sick of watching her baby brother get bullied

at school and agreed to help us.

She was on the inside, having actually been invited to the

party, dressed as you might guess in a skintight spandex suit, leather jacket,

and DIY utility belt as a secret agent (so discreet). Her job was to bolster a

little bit of fear into the party goers.

She was going to just happen to stumble upon a website that

shows the spooky history of houses. Of course, this information was being fed

to her by Rachel, our resident ghost writer who was currently sick at home.

Rachel had an unhealthy fascination with horror. She had

seen movies so scary and intense it would not be allowed in my house. She

seemed cold and distant to most, and I will admit, she scared me at first. She

mostly stuck to her own company, but she had become fond and accepting of our

group. We at least knew none of us would turn up dead in one of her novels.

While Rachel was at home inventing stories, I was walking

by the house, monitoring the goings on. I was playing the role of outside

surveillance, keeping things in line, and making sure everything went according

to plan.

I figured no one was bound to recognize me in my inflatable

T-rex costume. I probably looked so ridiculous that I would be easily

overlooked, which is exactly what I was going for.

The costume was hot, especially in this Florida heat, but

it was great for hiding my surveillance gear. I had my binoculars out as I

spied through the plastic covered eye hole in my costume. Honestly, this house

was the perfect setting for our little prank.

It was a two-story wooden looking home painted a light grey

that appeared spooky in the dark. The trees and shrubs were well trimmed, and

the grass cut. The house stood proud with its little porch and its rocking

chairs, the balcony hanging over and shading the porch, and shutters lining the

windows. It looked like the stereotypical haunted house, just before the

haunting. It even had fake cobwebs and plastic skeletons climbing the railings.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I pulled it out to read

the message, the light blinding in the surrounding darkness.

From Rachel.

They asked about the house.

Teenagers were too predictable. We gave Maddy a simple job.

All she had to do was introduce the idea of a website that came up the with the

spooky origins of each house and then read the made-up stories that were fed to

her by Rachel. We gave her one rule. No matter what, she was never

to bring up the idea of searching Finn’s house. This was to protect her, so

they would never figure out she was an accomplice.

We knew she didn’t have to bring it up anyways.

You know what they say, curiosity killed the cat. We were

relying on that same curiosity. Someone was bound to ask the spooky origins of

Finn’s house, and when they did, it would be the death of them.

It seems we had predicted right.

My fingers flew across the keyboard on my phone and I

pressed send.

On cue, the lights of the house went out, and a collective

scream rang out from the house.

The fun had only just begun.

We were riding on the premise that not one of the teenagers

in that house knew what a circuit breaker was, where it was, or what to do with

it. It was not exactly a stretch, and our hypothesis was quickly proven to be

true.

With the house blanketed in complete darkness it was time

to send in the skeletons. The wide eyes of the teenagers peeked out the windows

as they crowded together to get a closer look. I knew as of right now, all they

saw was a T-rex standing in the middle of the street, facing the house. They

couldn’t see me, or my binoculars. And besides, Halloween was the one day where

standing in the street in an inflatable T-rex costume wasn’t considered

suspicious.

I hit send.

Connor, our theater kid parkour artist, creeped to the edge

of the balcony, let loose a couple of plastic skeletons he had tied to the

railings, so they looked like they were dropping off the roof. He also dropped

some plastic bones by themselves for an extra effect.

Connor was a very athletic boy with a background in

gymnastics. He was constantly jumping over things and climbing up places that

probably shouldn’t be climbed. He had a love for musical theater, which is why

he was considered one of the weird kids. He was good too as he could both sing

and dance beautifully. It was too bad he was shamed for it.

But his climbing skills had come into good use, especially since

none of the rest of us could dream of climbing the roof.

The teens were startled by the skeletons, but no screams

emerged. We knew this was only the beginning of our revenge plan. We had more

in store for them, they would just have to wait and see.

It was time to bring in the ghosts. Now, when I say ghosts,

I do not mean the sheet ghosts that you see in that popular trend they just

brought back.

What I mean by ghosts is a couple of nerds dressed up in

ripped grey clothing and white face and body paint. There was a street light

close enough to the house that would give just enough light to make their

backyard creepy and give us an eerie look.

This was my cue. I exited the street and quickly dumped my

T-rex costume, with help from Ollie, a gamer who just happened to know how a

circuit breaker works.

Ollie was actually really funny, though most people would

never know. He loved to game, and we would often come over to his house to

play. We were terrible, but he never said a word. He liked to crack jokes and

he was full of knowledge most people would find useless.

Who would have thought we would need someone who knew how a

circuit breaker worked? I certainly didn’t, but it is incredibly useful.

We entered the backyard, clothed in our ghost costumes with

a little bit of fluorescent silver glitter to make up appear shimmery in the

darkness, like a mirage, our phone blasting your top of the line “ghost

sounds,” like anyone knew what a ghost sounded like.

The sounds drew the teenagers to the window where they met

their second horror.

This time we got screams as we were noticed, shimmering in

and out of the darkness. In sync, we turned our heads and marched to the

windows. Of course, we were only the distraction.

We had given Maddy one more important job in all of this,

to open the door.

So, while we had all the teenagers inside distracted by the

skeletons and the ghosts, she was to leave the door open for our last crew of

nightmares. We set the last part of our plan in motion. We sent in Liz and

Jackie, our tech girl and our prankster. They built things with their hands and

made things work.

Their job was probably the hardest, they had to make things

happen and we did not give them much time to do it. They were dressed to blend

in with the party, in pirate couple costumes, and had previously gone

unnoticed. Given only the few minutes Connor, Ollie, and I made for them, they

set to work setting up a holographic projector at the end of one of the halls,

setting things up to fall, and creating the greatest part of our illusion.

They had to scurry around in the chaos without drawing

attention. They could be called out if someone just happened to catch them

moving around the house while everyone else was concerned with the hauntings

going on outside.

Luckily, those two are good at sneaking around and avoiding

detection. They get themselves into a lot of trouble, but they rarely ever get

caught. Everyone knows it is those two, but the teachers and principal can

hardly ever prove it. Without evidence, they get off quite often, much more

than they should.

Once again, we put our climber to use. Remember that

streetlight I mentioned earlier. Guess who had just climbed the pole and was

messing with the light? We didn’t want to accidentally break the light, so

Connor was just supposed to cover the light with a dark blanket for a few

seconds to create a flickering effect.

As soon as that happened, the yard would go dark, and we

would have about two seconds to bail out of sight in complete darkness. The

light flickered and we dashed away from the sight of the window. We only knew

we had been successful from the blood curdling screams that shook the house.

Time to bring this party to a close.

We scurried around the side of the house to the front door,

where a sliver of light peeked from the thin opening. I watched a couple of

kids fade into the night as they bailed from the party. Smart kids. They would

probably survive a horror film, unlike the other idiots in the house.

We grabbed our sheets from Connor who met us at the door,

and we slinked into the chaos, just in time too.

Liz and Jackie had done an absolutely beautiful job.

 The show had just begun. A cascade of plastic cups

came sliding off the countertops onto the tile flooring. Heads turned and teens

jumped. They were trembling, mumbling prayers or complete nonsense (I’m not

sure which) under their breaths, holding up finger crosses, and hiding behind a

few brave or stupid (it really is a fine line) people. One poor soul had passed

out on the floor. I felt kind of bad, but at the same time, not really.

The group turned and rushed for the door, which I quickly

slammed shut with my foot. It was almost pitch black and they were too

concerned with the door to see me.

No one bothered to check to see if the door had actually

locked. Predictable. They just turned and ran up the stairs, only to be met by

our holographic ghost, which really wasn’t all that great, but it didn’t have

to be, they were already scared to death.

The faded whispers of ghosts echoes through the room. The

sentences and phrases could barely be made out, but if anyone listened closely

enough, they would only hear a stupid conversation we had with each other in

what he thought was a ghost whisper. We had agreed that this was more of a

realistic ghost sound than the stereotypical moaning.

It seems the party goers agreed.

They scuffled down the stairs, tripping and trampling over

each other. Several tumbled down the stairs as they were tripped or pushed.

Utter chaos had erupted, mixed with the screams, whimpers, and tears of the

scared to death teens.

Our extravaganza had finally reached its finale.

Liz and Jackie had planned from the beginning where the

most important pieces of our show would be placed in the house. We all knew our

places. We took the stage and turned this cookie cutter house on the block into

a real nightmare.

The house was dark with plenty of hiding places. It didn’t

take much setting up, only needing a few key cords in place to create the

illusion. We created the perfect house haunting, pulling and pushing furniture,

swinging and slamming doors, knocking non-breakable objects onto the floor (we

weren’t monsters), moving things, and overall, just making a lot of noise and

chaos.

One final ear-splitting scream emerged from the crowd.

Girlfriends clung to their boyfriends necks, people trembled in fear, several

covered their eyes or ear mumbling under their breaths, and one idiot demanded

to know what the ghosts wanted.

This was it, our time to make an appearance. Connor, Ollie,

and I dubbed our other ghost costumes, throwing the sheets over our heads and

stepping from our hiding places. Ollie held up a tablet that was currently

video chatting with Rachel, who had also dubbed a sheet over her head.

It was this moment that these gullible teens finally

figured out this whole thing was a prank.

Liz and Jackie stomped down the stairs in sheet ghost

disguise. Liz was holding the holographic projector and Jackie a spool of string.

They stared at us, eyes wide and mouths agape, in shock and

realization of what had actually just happened. No one moved, fearful of the

other tricks we might have up our sleeves.

We didn’t have to say a word. They all probably knew who we

were, even with our ghost disguises, though I bet not one of them knew our

names. Rachel, Connor, Ollie, Liz, Jackie, and me, Aubrey. The artist, theater

kid, gamer, tech wiz, prankster, and sci-fi nerd. We were the outcasts and the

troublemakers. They all knew this was payback for the years of torment they

made us go through. So, not one of us said a word, because we didn’t have to.

We had shown them tonight what we were made of. We had put

our collective skills to work and created a Halloween extravaganza no one was

likely to soon forget.

Of course, we knew things would not end here. The bullying

would never end, but we had had our moment and we were proud. We had tasted

revenge and it was sweet.

We could hear the sirens in the distance as one of the

neighbors apparently called the cops. I wonder why?

We figured it was our time to depart.

Like after every great performance, we joined hands and

took a bow, before marching straight out that door and into the night.