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Jack was driving with the heat cranked way up high and the windows rolled wide open. Jasey didn't understand why he wouldn't just keep the windows closed and the heating system off. It seemed redundant to her, but Jack liked the way the wind felt on his face. Except it was too cold for that so the heat needed to be on.
The car smelt like the pumpkin spice latte Zack had accidentally spilled all over the car a week ago. It only served to increase Jasey's nausea. It seemed to not affect the other boys; Alex was singing in the passenger seat, happily while Jack drummed on the steering wheel and Zack and Rian laughed along with the other boys' banter and witty jokes. Jasey was inevitably squished between Zack and Rian in the back seat. She was anything but happy as she clutched her Jansport backpack to her chest, which she had stuffed to the brim with candy, flashlights, water bottles, band-aids, a mini first-aid kit, and some other things before she left her house. She still felt unprepared though. She felt like she didn't have enough.
Jack's trunk was filled as well with other supplies, like more candy, sleeping bags, games, and things to entertain themselves with. The only medical supplies they even had were Jasey's- not that she knew that.
Her heart was beating too fast. Rian could feel it from beside her. He discreetly grabbed her hand and offered it a squeeze as Jack turned onto the block with that very creepy, very abandoned house on it.
The weeds were all overgrown on the whole block, like some sort of sick Halloween joke. But in any other month of the year, it would have felt as if the lawns were kept this ugly on purpose to keep people like Jasey and her crazy friends out. Most of the surrounding houses belonged to druggies, dealers, or psychopaths in the making. The houses were all nearly ripped apart; not one of them looked like they were actually suitable for humans to live inside of. The cars in the driveways were all old pieces of junk along with the fences. Garbage clogged the streets. Newspapers were scattered in trees. Everything was dirty. Shoes hung from the telephone pole wires. There were used needles and blood scattered in the streets. Broken glass bottles and even roadkill, but there was something so odd about this particular block; all of the houses were huge. They were bigger than houses any of the collective kids had ever even seen.
It confused all five of them. How could these people live in these gorgeous mansions and make them seem to be so ugly? They looked like some weird juxtaposition.
As acid rose in Jasey's throat, she wondered if the people living in the houses beside this one ever dared to do what they were about to. Had they ever been as scared as her? She doubted it. She wished she could be more excited about this. It was Halloween for crying out loud; her all-time favorite holiday!
But that one house; you could tell. You could tell it had been empty, untouched by anything for so long. It was evident that nobody dared to go near it. It was extremely clear that it was unsafe. It was beyond noticeable that you should not go in there. Anybody who wasn't blind wouldn't think twice about it.
"I'm so fucking pumped!" Jack yelled over Alex and the blasting radio.
The grass was tall. The trees were shedding leaves everywhere. Windows were broken. There were gaping holes in the roof. The big, black fence surrounding it was nearly destroyed beyond repair. There were wooden borders to cover up holes in the walls. The aforementioned beer cans and red solo cups still littered the lawn, but most importantly, the door was still wide open. It was almost as if someone wanted kids to go inside. Someone wanted to attract this gang of idiots. And what better night than October 31st?
Ever since the night the paramedics rolled out the last person to live there a few months ago, it was like the door had remained open. Maybe because no matter how much time went by since then, they simply couldn't figure out what killed him. His death was simply an unsolvable mystery.
Despite all the scratch marks on his body, nobody knew how he died. Why? Because the scratch marks were unlike anything anyone had ever seen before. No animal could do such things. There were too many. They were too wide. Too long. But also too impossible. A knife maybe could've done the job, but by who? What kind of person would do such a thing, first of all, and second of all, why? And how? The strength needed to carry that how would be so extensive. On top of that, there was absolutely no eye-witness, there were no signs of forced entry into the house, there were no weapons or notes left behind, there was supposedly just no evidence of anything, of any kind.
Just scratch marks and a pool of blood surrounding the man's body. According to the police reports, his carpet was ruined with it. His body decayed in the house for weeks. It wasn't until a neighbor noticed that the lights hadn't been on for an extended amount of time that it was finally discovered. By the point, the blood was no longer sticky and warm, but dry and crusted. The room smelt disgusting and vile. The neighbor who'd discovered the man supposedly threw up right there.
The man's death, however; death was ruled an accident, and no investigation of any kind was ever conducted.
There was no auto topsy performed because the victim didn't even have any family members to give consent to that. The state paid for the gravestone due to the crude nature of the death, but there was only a name and 2 dates on it. Nothing else was ever found on the man. He had no friends, no job, no family. It was almost as if he only existed to live in that house and then just die.
And so the death had remained a mystery and a local legend of sorts. It sent the value of the single block spiraling down, resulting in the obvious shit-hole it was now compared to the rest of the town. And the door to the house had remained open as though it was an invitation inside.
And then Jack and his friends found themselves walking right into the mouth of the trap.
