The Time of Your Life || c.b

One

"Its uhh... $37.50," I said nervously to the guy ordering pizza inside an obvious party. I knew this was a party from my high school but I didn't recognize the guy much. He may have been in my first period class?

He handed me $50 and told me to keep the change as my tip. I smiled and thanked him as he took the pizzas from my hands. He slammed the door in my face but I ignored it because of the tip. Since this was my last order of the night, I got in the car and headed back over to the pizza shop. Just as I began to close up at 10:30, the phone rang.

My manager, Holly, the only other person here now, answered the phone cheerily. I could clearly hear an order being placed as I wiped down the counters and threw out the dough that had been left out from the day. As Holly hung up the phone she turned to me apologetically. I already knew what was coming.

"Aggy, would you... maybe care to take one last order out?" she asked, her voice soft and apologetic. I sighed.

"Are there still extra boxes in the back?"

She nodded. "I'll pay you overtime and everything, you can lock up and even take home a box if you want to!" she exclaimed, smiling now. I sighed once more.

"Deal. Give me the address and the keys then. And make sure you clean up, I'm not staying until midnight," I said. The extra overtime was a nice thought, but I needed my sleep.

I was given an address supposedly "just out of town" and set off with two boxes of pepperoni pizza. When I put the address in my GPS, it read a 35 minute drive. Why do I do this? I sighed. Think about the overtime, Aggy. I began to drive.

Turning into the supposed driveway, I immediately recognized that this wasn't a house. There was a large gate (opened at the moment) with a NO TRESPASSING sign hanging on it. I knew this place from photos on Instagram; this was the abandoned farm that my town was famous for it being haunted. I groaned. Was this a prank? There's no way I'm going in there! This was my job, though, and on the off chance that the guys who ordered the pizza were here, I needed the money. So, reluctantly, I got out of my car in front of the creaky old barn and grabbed the pizza from the back. I used my phone as a flashlight, since the place had no source of light whatsoever.

I knocked lightly on the barn door, my legs shaky. "Hello? Is anyone there?" I called, "Someone ordered a pizza to this address, this better not be a prank!"

I waited a few seconds with no answer and knocked again, this time not saying anything. No one answered. I rolled my eyes as I took the pizza back to the car. Great, I thought, now I get to drive 35 minutes back to the shop and explain why I still have two pizzas. Just as I was putting the pizzas back in the car, a loud thud sounded from inside the barn, followed by two others. I jumped.

Clearly this was a joke being played on me, so I groaned and decided to go in. If I die, I die. No big deal, I thought. I pulled the large metal sliding door as hard as I could, holding my phone in my mouth for a flashlight. Once it was opened, I stomped through the area in front of the door tangled with chicken wire and garbage. As I entered, I drowned out the noises outside to listen carefully.

I'd seen photos of the place before and knew that there were two floors/lofts above me. What scared me was that I knew this barn could cave in at any moment, that was why it was illegal to trespass in the first place. The walls were painted messily with graffiti, large penises drawn in the childish way making this place's eeriness a little less intense.

Taking me out of my trance was another two thuds from right above me. I jumped again, pointing my flashlight at the ceiling. "Hello?" I called. "This isn't funny, whoever you are! You call at 10:30 at night ordering a pizza and do this to the delivery girl?! You'll be lucky if I even give you your—" THUD THUD. I shivered. Finally, I sighed, looking for a way up to the loft. My eyes landed on a sketchy ladder against a wall about ten feet from where I stood.

Glad I didn't decide to bring the pizzas, I made my way to the ladder and began to climb up. Splinters stood out all over the old wooden ladder and two rungs had completely snapped, making this a little bit harder to climb. Finally making it to the top, I shined my flashlight around, looking for signs of anyone. It was dustier up here, with old square bales and a lot of dried up bird droppings strone across the floor. A few holes in the floor caught my eye, and I made sure to keep away from them at all costs.

As I crept along the floor cautiously, stopping whenever I heard a heard a creak, I began to think I was hearing whispers. My brows furrowed and I held my breath, trying to be as silent as possible to listen. I shined my flashlight all around me but nothing caught my eye. I continued walking.

"Okay, this seriously isn't funny," I deadpanned. "Come out or I'm leaving and I'm taking the pizza wi— AH!" I squealed as a bird, or bat, flew straight at me, causing me to fall and bury my head in my arms. I squealed and squealed until, suddenly, I heard voices. Laughs! I knew someone was here!

"Who is that?!" I called. "Come out, I know you're here!" Suddenly, a deafening laugh sounded through the building. Not creepy, but a goofy, high-pitched laugh. I turned my head to where I heard it from and there stood the laughing figure. Tall, muscular, with a man bun on the top of his head. I couldn't make out his features well but it was clear he was fairly young.

Two other guys sat behind him, a thin and cute one with blond hair and the other, a chubby-faced man with dark brown hair. I stared daggers at them all.

"I'm sorry man, that was just too.. I can't breathe," the laughing guy said between breaths. "You dropped so fast!"

I rolled my eyes. Who is this guy? "Who are you? Did you plan that?!" I accused angrily. I was not in the mood to be laughed at by three guys that I didn't even know.

"Man I wish we were filming when that happened!" the blondie said, his face red from laughter. I noticed a tripod and camera laying down next to them, along with two backpacks and a McDonald's bag filled with trash.

"We were planning on scaring you but after that I think you've seen enough tonight," muscle-guy said, "What's up, I'm Corey. That's Sam with the blonde hair and that's Colby."

Cool. Now I knew their names. Now to just call the cops and get them arrested for trespassing on private property! "Okay but why are you here? And why did you order pizza to here?"

Corey answered. He seemed to be more talkative of the three, but that may have just been in the current situation. This place was pretty creepy and I'd be pretty quiet too if I wasn't so angry. "We shoot YouTube videos where we explore a lot of haunted and abandoned places, we heard of this place today and figured we'd shoot a video spending the night here. As for the pizza, we got hungry and our challenge is not to leave the place until 8am." I nodded, less angry because they weren't just doing this in order to scare the shit out of the pizza delivery girl.

I introduced myself as Aggy, but they seemed more keen on "Pizza Girl". They also explained to me more about who they were. Corey and Sam seemed pretty cool and fun to be around, but Colby was still kind of quiet. I could tell he was a funny guy because he laughed along to all of Corey's jokes, but I wasn't too interested in him. He just didn't seem to have the type of personality that popped out to me the way Corey's or Sam's did, not that Colby was any less likeable as the others.

After a few minutes of talking, I went back down and grabbed the pizza for the guys. They paid but as I was climbing back down the ladder to go, Sam stopped me. "Hey, Aggy. Did you wanna stay and hang with us? It's already almost midnight and I don't know if you driving home is the best idea. It's kind of foggy out tonight, not that I'm worried about you, but it wouldn't be worth it if something happened."