Who: Alyssa, Ned, Peter What: the trio hits up the Haunted House When: Oct. 22nd Where: the Haunted House Rating: TBD, but medium at most Status: Closed; Completed Gdoc
Alyssa loved the events put on by the theatre. Sure, she could bring Damien with her, but this felt more like an outing for her, Ned, and Peter. Besides, Damien would be her date for the Masquerade in a few days, and they now lived together, so it wasn’t like she never saw her vampire.
After texting the pair, Alyssa made her way there as planned, wearing a black sweater dress which accommodated her wings and some cute boots. Knowing Shawn, this event would either be the most fun thing ever or give her a migraine, which might explain why she encouraged Damien to have a night with his brother or Miriam or something.
She waited outside, inhaling the smell of a wood burning stove or a bonfire or something.
“Okay, so…. How scary is this going to be?” Ned approached Alyssa with Peter by his side. Peter already had to hear Ned’s concerns about peeing himself from screaming the entire walk here, but now Ned was checking in with Alyssa. He had almost brought his magical ring thing from Doctor Strange, but he thought it’d be bad if he freaked out and accidentally portaled someone to the moon or something.
“I hear it’s a haunted Doll House? Dolls… are creepy. Even before they get possessed.”
“Yeah, I’m not really a fan.” Peter had dealt with a lot of scary stuff – a lot of scary stuff, but fortunately for him, none of them included dolls. Especially porcelain dolls. Those were really creepy.
“We still haven’t seen M3GAN.” It was on the to-watch list for the month of October, along with a plethora of other scary movies. But that doll was really uncanny scary.
“I have no idea. With Shawn it could be ridiculous scary or scary scary.” She liked Shawn, but the only thing one could be sure about when it came to Shawn? Expect anything. “How about if any of us need to bail, just say kumquat and we’ll leave, no questions asked.” Alyssa didn’t want her brothers too scared. “Well, we’ll get to it, I’m sure.” She didn’t watch every movie with them, but Alyssa still found herself at the Bug House to watch some of the scary movies. Plus she hosted sometimes. “If it’s too scary, we’ll leave and go do something else more fun.”
“I like all these plans.” Was Ned prone to wanting to chicken out? Yes. Though he was also known to watch things through his fingers and eating popcorn helped his anxiety too. So he’d watch the things, just maybe not as ‘cool’ as other people might.
“You know in New York, some of the haunted houses are run by theatres and you need to sign a waiver before you go in because it’s that scary. Like I heard this one you had to take off your shoes and walk on vaseline and then crawl through cockroaches…” He spoke as he got in line for the haunted house.
“Yeah, remember the first time we did one of those? We were probably 7. May and Ben were arguing over whether or not we were old enough to go and we got 10 steps in before we ran out screaming.” May had been pretty vindicated after that.
“If we ever end up in New York in October together, we’ll have to take you,” he informed Alyssa. “I don’t know how they compare to haunted houses anywhere else, but the ones in New York are crazy scary.”
Alyssa knew that sometimes Ned scared easily, but she always felt protective of him in a way she didn’t feel about the other people she considered siblings. Probably because Peter was a superhero and everyone else was a damn vampire.
“I’m kind of impressed you made it that far. I can only imagine May’s validation.” Alyssa loved May like an aunt, but she certainly would appreciate being proven right in that moment.
“Maybe we should try and plan a trip next October. We could make it a group outing with our significant others.” At least Damien didn’t dislike Peter and Ned. “Or just us.”
“A trip huh?” Ned hadn’t actually been on many trips since he’d been to Madison. In fact, the school trips were generally the only ones he’d been on since then. “That’d be cool. Especially since the portals have way more options now. Like ones to The Shire even… though maybe we can pick somewhere that has running toilets.” Ned might be a big nerd, but he liked modern conveniences.
They were close to the front of the line now and could hear the occasional scream. “Well, at least we know it’s a haunted house.” Ned was feeling okay at the moment. He just definitely didn’t want to go first.
“We should definitely go together.” Not that Peter had a problem with them bringing their SOs – they just didn’t get a lot of time together like this anymore. “What about Caprica?” Peter knew Ned was familiar with it (they’d binged BattleStar Galactica one summer together after, all), but what about Alyssa?
The scream caused Alyssa to grin. Only a few more stood between them and the entrance. She did giggle at Ned’s comment. “We can definitely stick to anywhere with running water. Didn’t Narnia?” The portal to Narnia happened not long after her arrival and she didn’t recall most of it.
She liked the idea of just the three of them going. With her moving out of the Bug House, they couldn’t just convene downstairs for a movie night on a random Tuesday like the old times.
“I have no idea what Caprica is. Want to give me a summary?”
“Uh… it’s a science fiction show - or place? I guess? Because Madison basically demonstrated like every place is real, just in a different universe. Basically it’s like an advance society that makes androids. Before the androids really go crazy and start a war and killing and stuff. Which is good because I wouldn’t want to visit it if there was a lot of killing and war.” Ned did not do well with that sort of thing, even if he helped save the world sporadically. That part was basically under duress.
They were up next and as they were let in, they found themselves in what looked like a toy room. A TV seemed to turn on by itself and it was old timey. It talked about a doll maker who went crazy and his dolls did too. “Oh man…” Ned whispered because this was definitely creepy.
What was the obsession with dolls and horror? Peter didn’t know. But it worked. As he walked through the room, he was filled with a sense of overwhelming dread.
Peter was hesitant to compare this to the haunted houses back home, but already he suspected that this was going to give them a run for their money. There were plenty of good things about being Spider-Man, but one of them was always being prepared for jumpscares. He wasn’t so good about it when he was first bitten, but once his spidey senses started kicking into overdrive, he could sense a jumpscare before it had an opportunity to happen.
Too bad it didn’t work on jumpscare videos, though. Peter was not a fan of jumpscares. “I totally don’t like the creepy doll thing,” Peter said. “Doesn’t matter if it’s a porcelain doll or one of those toy dolls like in that old movie, Chucky.”
Alyssa looked at Ned and Peter as they walked. “Could we maybe skip Caprica? While androids sound fun in a science fiction type place, I don’t think I want to end up in a place with war. Having lived through a few of them to keep my throne, I’m not such a fan. What about Naboo? Or Asgard?” She couldn’t remember most of the options, truthfully.
The Red Queen loved horror and noir, so she couldn’t hide the delight on her face as the trio entered the first room. At the jump scare, she clapped delightedly. As the trio moved through the next room, though, she did glance at her brothers to ensure they handled the scares okay enough.
“Yeah, dolls have never been my favourite, but they sure work well.”
Ned’s Lola used to talk about curses a lot when he was growing up and one of them involved naughty kids turning into dolls so this was going to be a trip for Ned. Not that he really believed in that story. Probably. Then again, aliens were real and so was Wonderland and he could now do some magic even if it was very basic…
Ned offered a probably-too-big smile to Alyssa. Ned was creeped out, but it was a normal sort of level of that. It was no surprise he was a big scaredy-Ned and while sometimes he wished he could be more brave like Peter, Ned only could muster bravery when his friends needed him. And he was okay with that. Being brave 24/7 sounded exhausting.
Ned turned the corner and let out a scream, but it was only a shadow. “... false alarm, sorry.” But the giggling was super creepy. I murmured, “I am never going to giggle ever again.”
Peter’s spidey-sense alerted him before a warped, creepy jack-in-the box popped out of its box in the toyroom. He was thankful for it because if he wasn’t prepared, he probably would have jumped into Ned’s arms. And he wasn’t sure that Ned would be prepared to carry him.
“Y-yeah,” he said, trying to unsuccessfully swallow back a stutter as it cackled gleefully in his direction. “I don’t know care where we go as long as we get out of here. I’m really getting creeped out by the toys.”
Alyssa’s look of delight quickly changed to concern when she noticed Ned’s too big smile. Her arm wrapped around his shoulder and she hugged him briefly. The scream caused her to jump back in surprise. “Okay, never say never.” The giggling just added to the atmosphere.
She started wondering if this outing was a good idea, but at least Peter seemed to be a little less shocked. Or, less jumpy? The jack-in-the-box surprised her, but in a good way.
“So we’re done with the haunted house?” The Netherling didn’t mind, as long as she got an evening with these two
“Speed run?” He used the gaming terminology for it. They wouldn’t really ‘run’, but the nice thing about the way this haunted house worked was they didn’t have to worry about others in a big group since it was just them. So they could hurry along like they needed to pee or were late for a meeting and not ruin anyone else’s time. Plus Ned knew this stuff made Alyssa happy and there was this weird deranged desire to see what the ending was even if this was super creepy.
Ned looked at his friends, then started to walk super fast through the rooms… and also was semi-screaming the entire time which he discovered was a good coping mechanism. Just a steady ‘ahhhhhhh!’ at a normal speaking volume. He didn’t care what that might look or sound like.