Sandra and Amber were fronting up before the Sorority induction committee, preparing for the final stages of their hazing.
"Do you know the old McKillop house?" Cheryl asked them.
The two young women looked at each other, shrugged and shook their heads.
"Ah, OK. It's at the end of Oak Street. A big old multi-storey mansion. Abandoned, run-down with a total tangle for a yard. There's some sort of estate fight over who owns it and it's been sitting for a number of years, just slowly deteriorating. It's also reputed to be haunted."
Sandra nodded.
"I've seen the place," she said. "If any house is likely to have a ghost, that one will."
"Right. Well your assignment is to go to the old McKillop place and find the Sorority flag that's been stashed there. You'll get a bonus point if you can find a Fraternity flag that's supposed to be there. Any questions?"
"Yes. I suppose that there will be a couple of fraternity pledges looking for their flag?"
"You suppose correctly. And they'll get a bonus point if they get our flag, and we don't want that to happen."
"Ah," Sandra hesitated, wondering how to raise the subject delicately. "If we run into the boys are they likely to, ah. . ."
"Expect sexual activity?" asked Cheryl. "In the past they might have but nowadays that sort of thing is strictly forbidden during initiations and hazing. You might both be over eighteen," the girls nodded, "but if we tried to put you into a sexual situation we could find the whole sorority being shut down. The fraternity could find themselves closed down as well, so please keep your panties on until after the initiations, no matter how wet they may get."
The girls laughed. "So we just wander up to the old McKillop place, find our flag and hopefully the boys' flag and get out of there. Sounds easy enough."
"Good. I'll be waiting outside the front gate to give you the key to the backdoor at midnight tonight. You may find a torch handy. There's no power." Cheryl smiled at the expression on the faces of the two young women, suddenly finding that they've agreed to search a haunted house at midnight.
- - -
"OK, Mike, Frank. All you've got to do is find our flag in the old McKillop house at midnight. There'll be a sorority flag there, too, and it'll be a bonus if you can pinch that. There is one thing. I know you're both eighteen and as horny as hell, but hands off the sorority girls. I don't care if they start doing the dance of the seven veils, trying to entice you, leave them alone. Anything that looks like sexual shenanigans while out on a pledge could get the whole fraternity shut down, which would then compel us to beat the crap out of you, so hands off the girls. Understood?"
Mike and Frank nodded.
Mike summed it up. "Get into the house. Pinch the flags. Don't fuck the girls. Got it."
"Good. After you've joined the fraternity they're fair game. You may find that if you let them get to their flag first they might show their appreciation at a later date. That's up to you."
-- -
"Ah, Sam, tell me again why we're holing up here for a few days instead of just getting the hell out of town."
"I told you. Everyone will be thinking we're running like crazy. They'll never expect us to stick this close to the scene of the crime. No-one ever comes here and we can relax until the hunt dies down."
"Does no-one include the two broads walking down the path to the back door?"
"What the fuck?"
Sam moved quickly to the window, in time to observe Sandra and Amber scurry up onto the back porch, obviously heading for the back door.
"Shit. We can't have those idiots wandering around. They'll spot us for sure. Go get Bruno and grab them."
"Ah, Boss," said a rumbling voice from the doorway. "We got visitors at the front door."
"Geez, Bruno, get your facts right. The women are at the damn back door, not the front. I want you and Ron to go and grab them."
"Ah, OK, Boss, but I was talking about the two guys at the front door."
Sam stuck his head out into the hallway, seeing the light of a torch beyond the front door and a couple of shadowy figures.
"What the hell is this? The main street? Bruno, you grab the two at the front. Ron, you grab the women. And do it quietly."
A few moments later a small group of would be pledgers were escorted into the room to be met by a seething Sam.
"What the fuck are you lot doing here?" he snarled at them. "You boys too cheap to pay for a decent motel room that you gotta sneak into this dump for a fuck?"
"It's nothing like that," protested Amber indignantly. "We're undergoing an initiation for our sorority. We have to search this place for our flag. They," she added, looking at the two young men brought in at the same time, "are probably the fraternity guys, hoping to find their flag. More to the point, who are you."
"Never fucking mind who we are. Let's just say that we're going to be your hosts for a few days. Ron, tie these idiots up and dump them in one of the other rooms."
"Ah, yeah, Sam, but tie them up with what? I ain't got no rope."
"Geez, do I have to think of everything? Use their shoelaces or something."
"They ain't wearing shoes that need shoelaces, Boss," put in Bruno.
"And if you try to hold us our sorority pledge panel will come looking for us," snapped Sandra.
"Ditto for our fraternity panel. They'll worry that something has gone wrong and they'll be held responsible. They'll come barrelling in to make sure that we're all right."
"You can't just keep grabbing everyone who comes in," pointed out Amber. You'd have nowhere to put them all. And why do you have to hold us anyway. Who are you?"
"Hey," said Frank, "I bet they're the guys that hit the jewellers earlier tonight. I heard about that earlier."
"And you'd have been smarter to have forgotten about it," said Sam, genuinely angry. Holing up in the old McKillop place had been a brainwave and now these fools had ruined it.
