Scream

Chapter 4: The House

Ever since Sanders's tragic passing, Maggie had been scared of everything. Every sound. Every person. Everything. But she couldn't tell Emma. Especially not with Emma just leaving to college the day before. Emma had gone over to pick up Noah and Audrey since they were all going to Lakewood University together. "So Em', got any plans for our new college experience?" Said Audrey from the back of the car. "No. Not really. Right now, I just want to get to the college, find my dorm, get unpacked, and fall asleep." Emma said with a lazy tone as she was ready to fall asleep. "Emma, we don't have dorms. Don't you remember? We're living together off campus for safety." said Noah in an enthusiastic manor. "What is so safe about being in a small house outside of the campus?" Emma said with a level of uncertainty within her safety limits at the new school. "It probably is only going to have 3 rooms and be super small." Emma started driving down the road slower and slower until she fell asleep at the wheel. Noah reached over and grabbed the wheel and lifted Emma's leg to get off the gas pedal. He steered until the car came to a stop and put her in the back so she could sleep. How could he blame her for falling asleep at the wheel? She had already gone through so much and had barely gotten much sleep the night before, it was crazy for her to even offer to drive everyone down to the university. Noah decided to drive the rest of the way. The college was about 2 hours away from their houses. They left at 5:56 P.M. and arrived at 7:29 P.M. Noah had followed the directions to get to the house to the letter and arrived. As he looked up, he saw a prestine, beautiful white house. It was about 3 levels tall. He didn't understand why it was so tall for just 3 people who lived there until he looked over and saw about 7 other kids going inside. He realized Emma put in the wrong place. They had to drive around for 20 minutes until they finally found the house. He got out to see that it looked a little rundown but if they just cleaned up a couple things, it would look beautiful. He woke up Emma and Audrey and they went inside. The door opened with the loudest creaks ever. The floorboards were so old that once you stepped on them, a dog would bark. They all went inside to explore the house. Emma went upstairs to see the other rooms. As she looked, she only saw 4 rooms and 1 bathroom. She couldn't understand why her mom would get them a house with 4 rooms if only 3 people were staying there. She walked over to each room. They had all looked almost exactly the same. Tacky white wallpaper with little roses painted on them. Shag carpeting from the 80's. Full size beds with stains all over that were indistinguishable from blood or urine. She couldn't stand the odors. She finally found one room that didn't smell as terrible as the rest of them. She went in and sat her suitcase on the ground and sat on it. There was no way she was going to sit on that bed. Noah decided to go into the basement. The basement was exactly what anyone would expect. Unfinished. All cement walls and cement flooring. Broken down exercise equipment. Empty, crushed beer cans. Ratty, ripped couches and chairs. The whole place would've seemed creepy or disgusting to anyone else except for Noah. Noah thought he was in heaven. Audrey stayed out in the car for a couple minutes after Noah and Emma went inside. She felt weird being in this new school after all the murders her and her friends had gone through. She got out, grabbed her suitcase and went in the house. She went into the living room just to sit in the common area and think. The living room consisted of the same shag carpeting from the upstairs rooms, beige wallpaper that was tearing from the ceiling, couches that were from the 60's, an entertainment center bigger than 7 feet tall, and a TV fatter than a desk. Audrey couldn't turn on the TV because the remote was missing and there was also no cable box. She opened up Netflix on her phone and started watching The Shining. She thought it seemed appropriate knowing how creepy the house. Emma and Noah both rushed to the living room with 2 different tones of excitement with the new house. "I love it here! It's like a new version of the Murderhouse from American Horror Story!" said Noah as he jumped like a 3 year old in a candy store. "Noah, can we please not talk about murder in this creepy house? Especially not after what happened a couple months ago? Plus, this place looks so creepy. We need to buy all new sheets, beds, floors, walls, everything! It's gonna cost so much." said Emma. Emma seemed less enthusiastic more and more by the second. "Look, I don't know what you guys were expecting but you have to realize, we're not rich. We weren't going to get some mansion. Just deal with what we have. For the next week, we will buy all new stuff for renovations. We will just start school next week or something." said Audrey.