Oneshot Anthology

The House of Horrors

Cindy gritted her teeth and gripped the steering wheel as they pulled into the parking lot of the school. Not only had she gotten stuck with driving her mom's SUV instead of her dad's cute little sports car, the two reasons for this ignominy were both fawning all over one of her friends, Quinn in the backseat.

"Do you need more leg room, Quinn?" Sam asked, kicking the back of the driver's seat.

Chris pushed his brother aside as well as he could with the seatbelt restraining him. "Yeah, Cindy, move your seat up so Quinn can have some more room. It's not like your stumpy legs need the space."

“That's no way to talk to your elder sister, you little rat!” Cindy hissed.

"No, really! I'm fine!" Quinn replied with that smug smile she always had whenever guys threw themselves at her feet. Cindy could see it in the rearview mirror. They're like, ten, Quinn. Ewww

Cindy frowned harder and glared through the windshield as she pulled into a spot, but said nothing.

Tiffany, in the highly coveted shotgun seat, opened her door and looked down. "Ewwww, Cindy…. mud puddle. I'll get my shoes all wet and dirty."

Cindy fought back her irritation, she was in the despair of self pity right now. She caught Stacy's eye as she checked behind her before backing up, seeing at least one person in the car sympathized with her. Well, that was why she kept Stacy around, wasn't it? Throwing the car in reverse she found a drier spot a few places down.

When they'd all exited the car, Cindy thrust two tickets at her twin brothers with an air of annoyance. "Here, Mom may have said I had to take you, but I'm sure as hell not going to hang out with the two of you for the rest of the night."

Her brothers grabbed the tickets with glee, pushing each other as they ran into the fair.

"I'm going to the House of Horrors first." Chris called as he raced ahead of his brother.

"You're too wimpy to even go through the whole thing," Sam shot back.

"Am not!"

"Remember what happened at the wax museum?" Chris taunted.

"Shut up!"

Cindy rolled her eyes as they ran out of sight. "Brothers are such a pain in the ass"

"Um, Cindy, how are we going to find them later?" Quinn asked. "Don't you have to take them home, too?"

Cindy shrugged. "They'll probably hang out in that lame haunted house thing the whole time. I wish I could just leave them here," she muttered. "Shall we get this obligatory affair over with?"

The Design and Art Club went through the makeshift entry to the field by Nightingale High. Much like when they'd had the Renaissance Faire, the large field had been transformed into a long row of booths and attractions, this time with a 'spooky' Halloween theme.

The main attraction was the House of Horrors, a large tent decorated to look like a haunted house. The inside was supposedly divided into rooms, each with a different chamber of horror themes. The school's drama club had set it up and hoped the fair would help raise money for the charity like they did every year. Ms. Susan had wholeheartedly supported the fundraiser, going so far as to suggest every student either volunteer at a booth or buy twenty dollars' worth of tickets. Purely voluntary, of course.

The Design and Art Club had decided they were going to take a break from the fair this year and not spend their Saturday night in some tacky booth so they'd shelled out the twenty bucks. Except Quinn, whose tickets had been purchased for her by Jeffy. Or Joey. Whoever. She always used guys to get what she wants and of course didn't think it was worth it to remember their names.