Charlie stood by the old rusted gate. He looked up at the dilapidated house and sighed. " What have you gotten yourself into?" He asked himself. Charlie looked at his phone. " Five o'clock, let's get started."
Charlie had entered the contest on a dare. Stay at the haunted house all night, win money. Charlie was broke, living on friends' couches. He saw this as an opportunity. "25,000 dollars was life changing for anyone," he thought to himself. He never expected to get picked, but the other two people chosen backed out. Charlie met with the people holding the contest, a radio dj and some real estate guy.
"You're listening to Sandy Sinn on 101.9fm, and I'm here with our Halloween howl contestant Charlie, how's it hanging?" Sandy Sinn looked very much like what Charlie pictured, a thick goth chick complete with piercings and tattoos. Her fire engine red hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she wore a modified Judas priest t-shirt, cut to show off extra cleavage.
"I'm good, Sandy." Charlie replied.
"Okay, so Tuesday, October 31st. Our man Charlie here is going to spend all night at the Hartley house." Sandy's engineer pressed a button on his console, thunder and howling wolves sounded through Charlie's headphones. "The longer he lasts, the more sweet, sweet swag he gets. If he stays the whole 13 hours, he'll be twenty five grand richer." Another button pressed, then a cash register dinging.
The station bumper played, followed by Black Sabbath. The engineer silently counted with his fingers before signaling they were off the air.
"Maybe you want to use some of that prize money to show a girl a good time." Sandy winked at Charlie, looking him over.
"I just might."Charlie flirted back.
Charlie walked into the old house where Sandy, her producer, and a sweaty looking guy in a suit sat in the parlor.
"Charlie, babe, you made it." Sandy greeted Charlie with a quick hug and introduced the others. "You remember Dan, my producer," Dan gave a hey bro nod. "And this gentleman here is Mr Graves, the owner of the property and the station." Charlie shook the man's hand. Dan motioned for everybody to sit and they started the live feed.
"This is ya spooky girl, Sandy Sinn, coming to you undead from the parlor of the Hartley house. I'm joined by my friend and boss, Tobin Graves and our intrepid ghost hunter, Charlie." Both Charlie and Mr Graves greeted the listeners. "Tell us about the history of Hartley, Mr Graves."
"Well Sandy," Mr Graves started. His voice sounded a lot like a certain cartoon chicken, Charlie thought. "The Hartley boarding house for women, long suspected of being a bordello, met with tragedy on Halloween night in 1980." Mr Graves shifted his note cards. "Ms Hartley was found dead the following morning, along with four other women in the house." Mr Graves almost looked sad. "Apparently, a gas leak went unnoticed and, well."
"Thanks Tobin." Sandy reached over to pat the man's knee. "Okay, Charlie, I've got a box of ghost busting goodies for you." Sandy handed Charlie a white storage box. Inside was a voice recorder, digital thermometer, and a device labeled EMF. "You clear on what you gotta do babe?"
Dan motioned to Charlie. "Oh, yeah Sandy, I'm clear. Stay in the house until you get here at 7 and do ghost hunting shi... I mean stuff." Dan shook his head at Charlie.
"That's right, Charlie. Channel your inner Ray Venkman and find out if this place is really haunted or just creepy as funk." Sandy gave her signoff and Dan gave the all clear. "Thanks again Tobin, see you at the station." Mr Graves stood up and shook Charlie's hand again.
"Good luck son, your gonna need it." With that, Dan led Mr Graves out the door.
Sandy let out a deep sigh. "Alright Charlie, I'm outta here. There's no power here, but we left you a cooler with water, soda and energy drinks, oh and there's some deli sandwiches from Lugosi's."
"Awesome, thanks." Charlie walked with Sandy to the door. "Do you think this place is really, you know?"
"Don't know babe," Sandy began, "but if you make it through the night, I'll buy you breakfast."
"Just breakfast?" Charlie tried to put on the charm
"Easy there Romeo, you're cute and I'd be down, but let's make it through the night first." Sandy gave him a kiss on the cheek and walked out. Charlie turned to go back inside when Sandy called his name. He turned back in time to see Sandy lift up her shirt and flash her gorgeous pale tits in a see through bra. Charlie froze in place, marveling at the sight. Sandy gave him a wink and got in her car.
Charlie sat down on an old couch and opened up an envelope taped to the box. He pulled out an instruction manual for the emf detector and thermometer and a hand written letter from Sandy.
"Hey babe," Charlie read aloud, "here's the instructions on how to use the gadgets. You can mostly just hang out, but you need to explore the house and use the recorder. Mark your time and use your phone to take videos of you through the night. At 6,9,12, and 3, you have to pick a room and do an evp session, just talk and ask questions. P.s. I totally planned to flash you, win or lose, we're totally going to hook up."
Charlie put the letter down and smiled. He could definitely see himself dating Sandy. Her promise to hook up would help him with boredom tonight. Charlie opened up the cooler and took out a soda. The fall sun was going down. He turned on the battery powered lanterns and sat back down.
The room began to feel colder. Charlie assumed it was just a draft. He didn't think of himself as a skeptic, but he'd seen enough of those ghost shows to know not every place that's haunted was actually haunted. Charlie started hearing something. At first, he couldn't make it out. As the sounds grew louder, Charlie could hear the sounds of a woman moaning. He heard giggling in his ear as if someone was behind him. Charlie felt multiple hands rubbing his thighs. A woman's voice, loud and stern yelled out "Girls!" The room suddenly returned to normal.
Charlie couldn't believe what just happened. He started rethinking staying in that house. "No,"Charlie said aloud, "it's just noise and cold, I can do this." Charlie grabbed the recorder and the emf and began walking around the first floor.