Afterlife (A7X)

Chapter 1: The Answer's Still No

~~~~CHAPTER 1~~~~

The Answer's Still No~~~~

"C'mon man, just do it!" Jimmy urged, the others watching and waiting for my answer. "It's not all that bad. Just a haunted house is all."

I looked around at the others, catching Matt's gaze as I tried to weasel my way out of this for the third week in a row; nothing I'd said had worked so far but I was hoping it would today. Jimmy was waiting expectantly for my answer, and I switched my gaze back to him.

"I can't," I said, making Jimmy roll his eyes and the others, all except Matt, sigh.

Jimmy threw his hands up in the air and looked over at Matt who just shrugged in return, playing for the neutral side. Jimmy looked back to me.

"C'mon Zacky, don't be such a pussy," he said, hitting me on the arm.

I just glared at him and rubbed my arm, as if to prove his point, but it'd more or less hurt when he'd hit me; he didn't realise how hard he hit sometimes.

"C'mon Jimmy, he doesn't wanna go," Matt said, standing up for me. Jimmy lazily switched his gaze over to him. "We can always go without 'im if you really wanna go."

Jimmy looked back to me and looked me up and down, summing me up.

Now, before I go any further, let me explain a bit about what was really going on. Jimmy'd had this fascination over the past month or two with a supposed haunted house on the outskirts of town. I was never really one for hauntings, as to be honest, they creeped me out. The others had all agreed to go along, mostly because that's what we did. Any time one of us wanted to do something, then everyone else would agree.

If all of us agreed, it'd always go ahead. If one person disagreed, that was the whole idea scrapped.

"Wasn't the rule always 'all or none'?" Brian spoke up, looking a bit unsure about this idea; he'd been up for it before.

Jimmy looked to him in annoyance and crossed his arms.

"You pullin' out now?" he asked, clearly getting frustrated. "Seriously Brian? Why?"

I just sighed to myself as they started arguing about what to do. We didn't argue that much – it was usually only when someone wanted to do something badly and someone said no.

I just sat there on the table and waited for them all to calm down and come to an agreement, taking a drink of my soda as I watched them argue their points. Brian was trying to tell Jimmy why it was probably a bad idea, Matt was staying out of it and Johnny was trying to fight for both sides.

I caught Matt's gaze and he just shrugged. After a few more minutes, Matt stepped in.

"Alright guys, quit it," he said, pushing the two of them apart and standing in between Jimmy and Brian, as Johnny was off to the side anyway. "We're gonna go 'bout this civilly, so stop the arguing for now, got it?"

Brian and Jimmy glared at each other for a few seconds before nodding and stepping back a bit to give Matt some space. Brian and Jimmy got along real well; they were best friends. It was so weird to hear them argue against each other, as it didn't usually happen that often, but it did every now and then. We were all just lucky they never got violent with one another; it'd happened once or twice before, but it didn't happen very often.

Matt looked between them both before he landed his gaze on Brian.

"Why don't 'cha wanna go?" he asked.

"I just don't think it's a real great idea anymore," he said.

Jimmy went to say something, but Matt held up his hand, signalling for him to stop and let Brian finish. Jimmy just stayed quiet and Matt looked back to Brian.