WHAT: Leon and Revy break into Henry's very haunted apartment WHERE: Henry's apartment (Morningside, #602) WHEN: During the timeslip plot! WARNINGS: A whole lot of haunted apartment horror, and, of course, Revy's mouth, which is pretty much the same whether she's a teenager or an adult STATUS: Complete
The hauntings in Henry’s apartment had started out similarly to how they had started in Orange County -- A red haze filled the air accompanied by a deep buzzing/humming sound that Henry could feel in his bones and made his head ache. This was followed by strange noises, such as the windows rattling, a phone of a landline Henry didn’t own ringing, or the TV turning on to loud static. A red substance sometimes dripped from the faucets or his shoes would move themselves from one side of the apartment to the other. With the exception of a certain haunting in the fridge that he and Leon had encountered in Orange County, everything had been relatively benign. However, since the Time Slip things had gotten more….intense.
Along with the red haze and intense humming , Tumor like cracks had appeared on his wall in the living room and the bedroom and were steadily growing. The windows rattled at all hours of the day. The radio buzzed. Over his foot locker where he sometimes placed the Doll, strange doll like figures had appeared on the wall. Occasionally a shadowy figure appeared in his closet, just staring at him and sometimes crying. And once he saw the head of a man starting to poke its way through his wall over his couch.
He hadn’t mentioned it much on the network, mostly because he wasn’t sure what he could say or that anyone would really be able to help him with it. He wasn’t receiving items at the rate he did in Orange County and he’d run out of the medallions he’d had in his camera bag months ago. He did accidentally let the fact that his apartment was haunted slip while he was making dinner for Leon and Revy one evening. He caught himself immediately after and remembering that his friends were too young to remember what Orange County was like, quickly tried to back track and play it off as no big deal,
It hadn’t worked.
Leon was fine. He was fine, really. When Revy had suggested that they break into Henry’s apartment and check out the haunted apartment, Leon had been all for it. It sounded exciting. It sounded kind of sexy, really, and Revy was pretty hot. He didn’t believe in ghosts or things like that, but he’d had images in his head of Revy being scared. That under the tough girl cover, there was really just a normal girl looking to for an excuse to jump into his arms. He knew being scared tended to help ease the way in that regard. He’d taken girls to scary movies before and more times than not it ended in frenching. Hell, he’d even take Sarah St. Claire to a haunted house last Halloween and they’d made out for like, a whole hour afterwards.
And this was sure to be even hotter than just a Haunted House on Halloween. After all, they were breaking into someone’s apartment, which put a whole nother layer of risk on top. He was pretty sure he knew exactly why Revy had suggested it.
Except, of course, that a slightly spooky apartment with maybe a couple creaking floorboards and an ill-fitting window that let the wind whistle through it eerily was not what they’d found when they broke into the apartment. No, this was some genuinely freaky shit. Leon was staring intently at the wall of dolls, watching how they moved, mesmerized and horrified.
He wanted to leave. He wanted to grab Revy’s hand and run. But Revy wasn’t running, and Leon would be damned if he’d be the first one to do it. After all, he was the man. He had to at least be braver than her. He wasn’t going to chicken out first.
A window banged loudly. Leon yelped and jumped away from the wall, immediately feeling embarrassed for the outburst. He hoped Revy didn’t hear him. That didn’t stop him from rushing to her side as fast as he could possibly move.
“How much do you think all these totally fake decorations cost?” Leon said, inserting a hefty helping of cool into his voice. He was cool. He was chill. He was calm. He was definitely not freaking the fuck out. He was reaching for Revy’s hand because she was probably scared.
Revy had no fucking clue what to expect. She thought it could be horseshit – but then this place was off the walls weird with the way it had freaks from, like, Lord of the Rings walking. Mentioning his place had some freaky shit happening had presumably been a metaphor for Henry owning a thousand dildos and decorating his apartment with it. Either way, she wanted to see, and had little qualms of breaking and entering into a home that wasn’t hers.
She did it all the time back home anyway. Maybe Henry had something decent to pocket that wasn’t dolls.
There was a feeling creeping up her spine that she didn’t like.
“How about you stop being a pussy and you touch one of these ‘totally fake decorations,’” Revy shot at him, the last few words hitting a mocking voice but the grin she gave him - well, it could be flirtatious. “Or help me look around, that nerd’s got to have some fucking cash so we can get cigarettes.”
She grabbed a miscellaneous drawer in the kitchen and pulled it. Utensils, boring. She grabbed another one, more kitchen shit. The third was jammed, and she tugged at it hard.
“Fuck,” she cursed under her breath and pulled it with both hands. “Leon. Start being useful and help me!”
“I don’t think we should steal money from him. Henry’s been pretty nice to us,” Leon said, frowning at her. Stealing from stores was one thing. He didn’t feel guilt for stealing cigarettes from the local grocery store or stealing a pair of new jeans from the jean store. But, well, stealing from a person felt wrong.
Even still, Leon went where Revy gestured. “Don’t worry, I got it,” he said. He took hold of the drawer, planted his foot on cupboard door below it for leverage, and heaved. The drawer flew open, suddenly and without warning, and Leon fell on his ass.
As the two teens looked at the drawer that had been forcibly pulled out, a subtle, but noticeable, change came over the apartment. The air around them took on a dim reddish hue that seemed to flicker like the film of an old movie. Leon and Revy were then treated to a deep hum that seemed to vibrate in their bones. Then, slowly, an arm reached out from within the drawer. The unnaturally grey skin of the arm was covered in what appeared to be open wounds that oozed and dripped black fluid. It was soon followed by another arm that slowly reached its way out of the drawer. From within the drawer itself, Leon and Revy could hear something moaning in an unnatural way. As though whatever was attached to those arms was in pain and trying to scream with a mouth that refused to work.
The arms found purchase on the counter top and side of the open drawer itself. A head appeared from within the drawer, grey skinned, bald and covered with similar black oozing wounds. The moaning intensified as the creature pulled itself up from a space it could not physically occupy.
What.
The.
“FUCK!” Revy screamed, a full-blown sound of total goddamn terror because there was nothing in her life - not the addicts, the murderers, the thieves - that could have prepared her for what looked like an actual hellspawn claw its way out of a drawer. She stumbled back, hands feeling around for some kind of weapon but all she managed to grab was…
Leon’s face.
Leon’s fucking face.
Oh, they were screwed.
Leon screamed, and then screamed again when something grabbed his face. The fact that it was Revy only lessened his terror by minute degrees. From where he laid on the floor, he attempted to boot the drawer closed again at the same time as he tried to scramble onto hands and knees to run.
Henry heard the screaming and it made his blood turn to ice and his heart leap into his throat. In a matter of seconds he was in the apartment and he saw what was coming out of the drawer -- saw that it was aiming to go after the two terrified teens. Henry’s fear turned to rage.
In an instant he grabbed his ax from its spot just inside the living room. With his free hand he grabbed Leon and then Revy and pulled them back out of the way. In the next movement, he brought the ax down onto the grey apparition. Once. Twice. Three times. Each swing of the ax was punctuated by a very angry sounding grunt from Henry.
After the third swing, the drawer broke free from the counter and fell onto the floor. The grey apparition seemed to have retreated back to wherever it came from, but Henry swung twice more, just to be sure nothing was coming out.
Panting, he looked up from the floor and addressed the apartment as though it was somehow alive. “You can fuck with me,” he said and then pointed the ax head at Leon and Revy. “But you leave them alone!”
No response - though honestly, Henry was relieved that nothing had actually talked back to him. The air continued to be thick and red and the humming droned on. Henry’s head started to ache just behind his eyes. He raised a hand to his brow before looking at the teens and motioning to the door.
Don’t need to tell Revy twice, or at all. She thought she could stomach anything because, yeah, she’s seen some shit despite her age - blood and guts on asphalt, how a knife feels when someone holds it at your throat.
This, though?
Noooooooooope.
Revy grabbed Leon by the shirt and began hauling him back out into the hallway, heart and blood screaming in her ears. “What the fuck,” she fumbled. “What the fuck was–why can’t you be normal and have silicon fists that you stick up your ass your apartment instead?! What the hell was THAT? WHY the hell was that?”
It was probably good thing that Revy was there; Leon was rooted to the spot, unable to tear his eyes away from the axe-wielding Henry, and he likely would have sat there like a gutted fish if Revy hadn’t grabbed him. Brought back to his senses, he scrambled after Revy, stopping only once they’d reached the hall. Part of him wanted to keep running, to not stop running until he was long, long gone. But he couldn’t just leave Henry like that, not when Henry had spent his time cooking for them and generally having their backs.
“HolyshitthatwasthescariestthingI’veeverseen,” Leon breathed, all one word. “What the fuck? What the fuck, man?”
Henry’s head was still pounding, and his body shook with the excess adrenaline coursing through him. He had no patience to be yelled at by anyone, much less a teenage version of his best friend. “Gee, Revy,” he snapped back at her, “I’m sorry you got scared after breaking into my fucking haunted apartment!”
Yelling was not helping. The space behind Henry’s eyes pounded in beat with his heart and his stomach lurched and rolled along with it. He hadn’t felt this bad since his Dreams had come to an end. He put his free hand to his head, pressing the heel of his palm against his eye to relieve some of the pressure. They’re just kids… he reminded himself, looking at Revy and Leon. Just two stupid kids with a penchant for getting in trouble and giving him a goddamn heart attack. They were both safe now. That was what mattered.
In response to both of their questions, Henry thought the thing crawling out of the drawer was what was left of one of Walter’s victims. They had a penchant for coming back after death. “It was the ghost of someone who got killed,” he said in a quieter tone. The pounding was starting to subside, and he lowered his hand from his head and looked at the two teens worriedly. “Are you both alright? It didn’t hurt you, did it?”
Fucking Christ, now Revy was really considering not breaking into an apartment ever again if that kind of surprise was even possible because – nope, nope, fuck that, she might have peed herself a little bit and she was not going to admit that. She gulped down some air, and narrowed her eyes at him.
“Leon might be a pussy but I’m not,” she snapped, and then leaned into Leon, whispering, “do you think he killed the guy? Maybe the nice guy thing is to hide the fact that he’s a serial killer.”
At this point, she wouldn’t put it past the point of possibility because fucking monsters.
Leon grimaced; Henry might not have been yelling at him, but he was still chastised. He should have stopped Revy, some part of him had known that. And then he grimaced again. Stopped Revy, like it was all her fault; no, he’d had as much to do with this as she did. She hadn’t twisted his arm, he’d been just as eager as she had been.
But he stopped feeling guilt as soon as Revy whispered to him, eyeing Henry with a critical eye. “I don’t know, he doesn’t give me serial killer vibes,” Leon said after a moment, though he wasn’t entirely convinced. “It would make sense why he’s getting haunted though, right? Did you see him with that axe?”
Leon was not whispering nearly as quietly as he thought he was.
Neither of them were. Henry gave them both a dead panned look. He didn’t exactly blame them for thinking that way. He was standing in the middle of the hallway with an ax in hand, an ax that he had just used to hack one of his kitchen drawers to pieces. He knew how it all looked.
His head still hurt too much for this shit.
“I’m not a serial killer,” he said in a tone to match his expression. “A serial killer named Walter Sullivan is haunting me. Haunting my apartment.” Which wasn’t entirely true, but was the best explanation he could give at the moment.
“Walter. Hah,” Revy scoffed, hands on her hips. “What a little bitch of a name,” she then said, in the face of someone who was holding an ax, and who didn’t look pleased with them at all, who claimed he wasn’t a serial killer.
Her frown deepened.
Henry was–their friend??? He knew how to work an oven and make some dinosaur chicken nuggets and that was pretty fuckin’ boss, and if he wanted to kill them, he probably would have done it by now.
Right??
“Okay, whatever, we don’t ever try visiting your apartment ever again,” she sighed in frustration, rolling her eyes. “You look broke anyway.”
Leon snorted at little bitch of a name, but straightened up a little when she continued. “Not that we were intending on taking anything, sir” he added, elbowing Revy pointedly.
Henry blinked. The absurdity of the entire situation caught up with him and he couldn’t help but laugh. “Sure you weren’t,” he said with a dismissive motion of his free hand. “But long as you’re both ok, it’s fine.” He let out a tired breath. “C’mone,” he motioned back up the hall towards Leon’s apartment. “I’ll get us some dinner and then answer whatever questions you have.”
Revy held Leon back so they could lag a few steps behind Henry, shielding her mouth with her hand to actually whisper – in a whisper volume – and say, “He might not be a serial killer, but he also might be. Let’s sleep with some knives jus tin case.”
Leon had a ton of questions, though few of them were more coherent than what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck.
He nodded at Revy though. He definitely wanted a weapon or two after what he found in the apartment down the hall, though he wasn’t sure if he felt much safer with the idea of Revy sleeping armed.
No, Revy sleeping armed was infinitely better than creepy ghost serial killer in a drawer. He’d make sure he slept nearby, just in case.