[October 31st, 1990]

Jack pulled his head back into the master bedroom and caught his breath. Previously, he was staring all the way up to the top of the house from outside of a bedroom window, holding onto the top of it as he pulled his body all the way out- leaving just his legs inside the house- and craned his neck up to peek. This house was bigger than he could particularly imagine. He felt nothing but pure bliss as he sucked on his strawberry-flavored lollipop and threw some miscellaneous glass at the wall.

Jack then made his way out of the bedroom and back into the hall, which was littered with memories; broken picture frames that had fallen from the no-longer-white walls, broken toys, tearing wallpaper. All of it was useless.

Meanwhile, Zack and Rian were running through the basement. Figures they would pick the creepiest room in the house and not Jack.

Rian pulled open a dusty door revealing something he couldn't quite make out. It looked like a body, but it couldn't be. There was no way. No way that someone living in a house this winsome could lock a girl's body in a dusty old closet. Besides, nobody was living here anymore. He shut the thing before Zack could get a chance to see, but suddenly he wanted to go home. A twinge of guilt hit Rian's side. He longed for Jasey Rae.

Presently, however, the girl had one of her hands clutching Alex's. He was dragging her through the house slowly; one room at a time, if that. She wasn't really letting him explore anything. She was closed to vomiting now then she was smelling that pumpkin latte. Though the mere thought of the thing brought on a stronger wave of nausea.

As much as he wanted to explore though, Alex understood where the girl was coming from. He himself started to get nervous after he heard some strange noises coming from a closet of some sort over on the third floor.

"A-A-A-lex..." Jasey whispered as he pulled her into yet another room. "I-I th-think this w-was a mistake."

Alex turned around. He gave her a hand a hard squeeze and looked into her eyes. "No, it wasn't. Don't worry about it." He smiled at her. "I'm not going to let anything happen to you Jasey Rae." Her stomach flipped upside down, but she blamed it on the fear.

Jasey Rae averted Alex's gaze as he tried to look into her eyes. She knew deep down that he was only trying to help. Eye contact just wasn't her forte, especially not when she was close to vomiting, or now even a full breakdown. This was just too scary for her right now.

She shook her head. "I-I-I want to go outs-ide." She simply couldn't stay in this house anymore. She could smell something rotting. She and Alex had stumbled upon the room where the murder happened and she saw the blood. What she didn't know before entering, was that there were words written in blood on the wall behind where the body was found. How could it be considered an accident when there were words behind where the body was found? And what the hell was that noise?

Alex gave the girl a sad, sympathetic look. "We can't go outside, Jasey. You know that."

"W-Why?" The poor thing couldn't force out any more words than just this one. She was stuttering more than she was used to, and that was already a lot.

"Because how will the others know? What if they think we died? Or hijacked Jack's car and fled or something? Hm?" He'd answered like it was rehearsed. Although, full disclosure, it had kind of had been. Alex had a gut feeling that she'd ask to leave or go outside or wait by the door- or something- while the others contributed to their exploitation. Alex knew he'd have to come up with a slue of reasons as to why they absolutely couldn't, so, like any sane friend, he had them stored and ready to fire in the back of his mind. For when the time came. Just in case. "Jack would go crazy if we quit on him now."

She basked in the glory of that statement. Jasey was instantly reminded of how Jack looked up at the ceiling just a couple of weeks ago. How they locked eyes and she crumbled underneath the guilt of all of those Halloween's that she had held Jack's friends hostage. Jasey shook her head again, insisting that she wanted to go outside. Despite that same guilt rising up in her chest. Still holding Alex's hand, she felt her heart rate speed up and the room started to spin. The only thing she could think about was not being able to get out of here.

"Okay, okay." Alex stared at Jasey as her face went red just like always. He watched as her eyebrows furrowed together and her teeth began to chew on her bottom lip. "Let's try to get on the roof. That way we're still technically exploring?" Believe it or not, this was way more for him than it was for her. He couldn't stand to watch her cry. He himself would start to cry. How could someone so beautiful be hiding behind so much pain?

Jasey nodded and tried to catch her breath.

Zack pushed the basement door back open and Rian followed him up the stairs. His heart was racing and little beads of sweat were now forming on his hairline.

Zack laughed at the sight. Rian was so nervous that Zack feared he might pee his pants right on the spot.

"Come here." He beckoned. "We should go and see what happens if we turn on the sink. Maybe blood'll come out!" If Zack knew any better, he wouldn't have even joked about that though.

Rian shot him a look. "Zack, maybe let's find Jack, okay?" He moved towards the stairs, motioning to the other, bigger boy that they should go up them. "He's alone."

Zack took one last longing glance at the chrome faucet and, luckily for him, obeyed Rian like a lapdog. If he turned on that sink and saw what was really hiding in the pipelines, he would've shit himself.

Jack was making his way through a hall lined with too many doors (which Alex and Jasey had already walked through), when he heard the strangest of noises coming from behind them. It was almost as if it was a snore. Of a human. That would be impossible though.

Jack took a deep breath and made his way over to the door. He stared at it for a full ten seconds before deciding to gather the courage to open it. He inhaled deeply, bracing himself for what was behind the door. He put his hand on the cold, old knob and began to twist. The weird human snore noise continued on the other side. Jack dared not make a sound in fear of scaring that thing off.

Suddenly, he felt something grab at his arm.

"Hey!" He yelled. His hand dropped from the knob. Jack whipped around so fast that he couldn't even tell that the noise behind the closet had stopped.

"Relax!" Zack ordered. "You and Rian are so fucking jumpy." Jack shoved his hands down from their defensive state and pulled them reluctantly through his hair.

"Yea... I thought I heard something, that's all." Jack clarified. He pulled the lollipop out of his mouth, sticky-sweat saliva ran down his finger. "Where's Alex and Jasey?"

Rian laughed. Then so did Zack. Jack, on the other hand, rolled his eyes.

"Are they having sex? In a fucking haunted house? I thought Alex would be like peeing himself right now, but no. They're having sex. Of course." Jack seemed pretty angry, actually. The last thing the other boys expected. Rian and Zack looked at each other in confusion. But then Jack started to mumble something about it being Halloween, and Rian stopped him, already arriving at the realization.

"Jasey's too dumb to even realize that she likes Alex yet. She talks about him like all the time but I just tune her out. She has zero experience with boys."

"Um, hello?" Zack interrupted. Both Jack and Rian looked away from each other and up at him in utter confusion. "She has zero experience with girls. Does she even have any girl friends? No."

"That's clearly not what he meant, pretty boy."

"Well, she sucked my dick once."

Rian turned around "I- No, she didn't. Dude, come on."

"Yea. No. She did not suck my dick once."

"There's something seriously fucking wrong with you."