Allison stepped outside. The wind picked up her skirt and the drawstrings of her jacket. The weather was definitely changing. Brown and orange leaves were too wet to crunch under her shoes today, but it seemed only last week that she was shuffling across emerald lawns on her way to class. She drew up the jacket's zipper and plunged forward into the chilly breeze. Her backpack, though sagging heavily with the weight of over-priced textbooks, did help to block out the cold. She wished sincerely for time to stop by the coffee shop, get something hot in her hands and in her stomach, but she was already tardy to Biology.
By late afternoon, Allison was on her fourth class of the day and nearly done for the week. As professor Collins took yet another tangent to his lecture on the Napoleonic Wars, her mind drifted to weekend plans. She took out her phone and tried to hold it out of sight while she sent a quick text to Victoria. Surely Vikki would have something exciting planned. The girl was crazy about the whole month of October, each day building up to the best holiday of the year. She put her phone away in time to hear Collins announce the date of their midterm exam. Then, she was free for a night and two whole days.
Thankfully, campus was only fifteen minutes away from the house. Sure, sharing a house with three other people was a pain, but it beat having to stay in the dorms. Something about dining hall food and communal bathrooms made her shudder. Here, she at least had her own shower and access to a kitchen that was otherwise unused. The first thing she noticed as she crossed the threshold was the skunky odor of cheap pot. That would be Edison, she thought, who would never be able to get away with that in a dorm room.
"Light some incense or something, will you," she complained as she passed the couch where the slouching figure of her roommate reached for a game controller. He didn't reply, lost in a world of reefer.
She was halfway up the stairs when her phone buzzed in her back pocket. It was Victoria writing back. Apparently, she had spent the morning nursing a hangover instead of attending professor Middleton's lecture on the Critique of Pure Reason. Despite that, she was already at the bar/coffee shop the two of them frequented downtown, two pints into her end-of-week celebration. Allison envied her friend's ability to bounce back.
She tugged a cord connected to the bare bulb inside of her closet and illuminated what looked like the aftermath of a miniature F-4 tornado. An overflowing laundry basket dominated the disaster scene, obscuring a mound of shoes, and spilling across the carpet to a pile of abused notebooks and loose papers. Narrowing her eyes at what portion of her wardrobe still hung clean on its hangers, she tried to decide what was warm enough for fall weather but not winter-weather-bulky.
"Nice sweater," was the greeting she received when she arrived at Grimm's thirty minutes later.
The comment had come from Kristen; Vikki and Allison's best friend. She couldn't tell if she was being complimented on the garment's stitch pattern, the way the kelly green knit set off her strawberry-red hair, or the plunging neckline that exposed an ample portion of her milky pale chest. She and Vikki often joked that Kristen was a triple threat. But a year or two older, their bespectacled friend had dropped out of college simply because she was far too talented to waste her time and money in school. A keen eye for fashion and a knack for turning a ball of yarn into haute couture had enabled her to publish two books by the age of 20. They were both bestsellers and her knitting blog was well-known in the crafting world for both its patterns and its eclectic take on LGBTQ issues. It wasn't an odd mix if you knew Kristen, who was suddenly distracted by the shapely backside of a blonde sorority girl across the room.
"It's about time you arrived. Here, catch up," Victoria ordered as she slid a frosty pint of Guinness across the table.
"You expect me to chug Guinness," asked Allison incredulously.
"No, I expect you to do these shots and chug that Guinness."
Right on cue, a waitress arrived with a tray full of whiskey shots. She clinked shot glasses with the trio and downed one of them herself before returning to the bar to pick up a round of pints for another table.
An hour went by while they discussed what to do with their evening. Eventually, they settled on Allison's suggestion. The season's first haunted house had recently opened up in Libertyville and by all accounts, it was phenomenal. If they invited Lawrence, they could potentially chill at his place afterward and not have to make the drive back until morning. Since Kristen was now on her third pumpkin latte, they decided she would be the one to drive them the forty minutes to Lawrence's house.
When he opened the door, they all shouted, "Trick-or-treat!"
"Come back in about two weeks," he said, and pretended to shut the door in their faces.
Unlike Allison, Lawrence had a house all to himself. It was one of the perks of being the only child of wealthy parents. His father was an artist, not well-known locally, but a big hit overseas. A painting he had sold last week had fetched nearly half a million dollars. Lawrence was following in his father's footsteps, as evidenced by the studio filled with easels and crumpled paint tubes right off of the den. The girls stood in the doorway between the two rooms and tried to get a peek at their friend's latest canvas while he put on his shoes and coat. Victoria was reaching out to pull the sheet off of one piece of artwork when Lawrence appeared out of nowhere and smacked her hand.
"Don't you dare," he warned, "you know I never show my work before it's finished."
Vikki stuck her tongue out at him, "Let's get out of here then. What are we waiting for?"
It was only ten minutes before they pulled into the parking lot at the haunted house. The line was already an intimidating length, but they were committed. The four of them added themselves to the tail end of it and took turns playing Would You Rather until had inched their way up to the ticket booth. After they paid the entrance fee, a scruffy-looking teen doused in fake blood fastened them with neon wristbands and they went in.
Just inside the doorway, they found a hall that steered them immediately to their right. Everything inside was painted black and the only light came in rapid pulses from a strobe in the ceiling. The group of friends drew closer together; Vikki and Kristen clutching Lawrence's coat sleeves and Allison bringing up the rear. They turned another corner. More of the same seizure-inducing lighting and bare walls. As they crept forward, expecting ghouls to jump out at them from the next corner up ahead, they were startled by the sound of a chainsaw revving behind them. Allison whipped her head around and was confronted by a maniacal clown rushing toward the group, waving the growling weapon over his head. All four of them screamed and dashed forward, making for the bend in the hallway. As they made their way around it, bandaged hands popped out of a panel in the wall and clawed the air in front of them. They all screamed in unison again and flattened themselves against the opposite wall so they could scoot by without being molested.
After a few more twists and turns, they found that the confines of the narrow hallway opened out into a medium-sized room, also dim, but absent of flashing lights. There were two lounge chairs inside and a rectangular rug of indeterminate color laid between them on the floor. The only discernible means of egress appeared to be a set of elevator doors, next to which stood the figure of a man in a bellhop uniform. The only light source was directly over it, forcing its face into a grotesque contrast of pitch and glare. Lawrence lead the tentative creep toward the bellhop figure, which was perfectly still and silent. As the four friends were wondering if they were approaching a mannequin, it snapped to life.
"Greetings, guests, and welcome to The Charles Perault Hotel! If you'll step right this way." He pressed a button mounted to the wall and the elevator doors slid open.
Allison, Kristen, Victoria, and Lawrence all looked at one another. They joined hands and bravely stepped past the doors onto a shifting metal platform. The bellhop joined them and pressed another button that prompted the elevator to close. Underneath them, the floor began to vibrate and sway. A glow peeking through the crack between the doors moved up from the ground to the ceiling. Then another followed. It appeared that they were headed down.
