October Writing Prompts- Pinterest List by ZellyKatArt
October 12- Spider/Spiderwebs
Calli, Troy, Jake, and Trinity walked towards the haunted house that was put on every year for the town where they lived for the month of October. Jake had talked them into going since they didn’t want to go because last year was horrible. The haunted hayride didn’t happen because the people in charge had forgotten to hire someone for it. The haunted house itself was poorly made and nearly fell down on people who had gone. It was so poorly done they had to close it down early. It had been open for only a week.
Jake told them that someone new took it over and that the person had done a better job. He had seen pictures and shown his friends, but the house still looked like it was falling apart. They used the same house every year, and it looked like the new person taking over was using it again this year. Jake’s friends said no at first, but Jake talked them into it.
So, now the group, dressed in their Halloween costumes, started up the front stairs, surprised that the house still looked run down, but they could tell the walls and roof were brand new.
“Wow, whoever bought the place has made it look nice, even though it still looks run down,” Calli said as she rang the door.
The doors creaked as it slowly opened by no one’s hand. They laughed and made jokes about the ghost that opened the door for them as they stepped inside. They looked around, but there was no one else in the house but them. They looked at each other, confused, and entered the first room to their left. It looked like a regular family room, though it had skeletons and other spooky items, but it wasn’t any scarier than last year.
“Yawn,” Trinity said as she linked arms with Jake. “Baby, I thought you said this place was going to be scary.”
“It’s supposed to be. They said that you would have to face your fears to escape the house.” Jake walked into the kitchen, but again, there were only a few spooky items. Nothing that would have scared a mouse.
Troy hugged Calli as she shivered. The house had grown cold since they had entered. They finished exploring the bottom level, then headed for the stairs.
“Can we go?” Calli asked, still shivering. “It’s so cold and so boring.”
Troy agreed. “We should just go, Jake.”
“No, let’s go upstairs. Let’s just see,” Jake said and led the group upstairs. He walked through the first bedroom door and felt like he had passed through spiderwebs. He brushed them away from the face and head, spitting since it felt like it had gone into his mouth. “Gross. Did you guys…?” He turned to talk to his friends, but they weren’t there. He lunged out of the room and looked around. “Trinity, baby? Troy? Calli? Where are you guys?”
The house was no longer around him, but a cave. He looked at the cave walls strangely, then laughed. “Oh, so now the house has been changed to be spooky.” He ran his hands across the wall and flinched since it was camp, just like that of cave walls. “Okay, that is pretty realistic.”
Jake ran for the stairs. He had to find his girlfriend and friends. He didn’t like how it felt like a cave, having feared being trapped in one since he was a kid. Jake had read stories about people getting trapped in them and dying there. He had nightmares after that, ever since he was a little boy. Now he was in a cave, and he hated it. Jake had to get out, but first he had to find them.
***********************************************************************************************************
After Jake went into the first room, Trinity entered the second room to see if there was anything scarier in there. She walked into the room and squealed, slapping at the spiderwebs she had walked through. She pulled at her hair and jumped around. She hated walking through spiderwebs. Once she was sure they were all out, she looked around the room and gasped. It looked like her grandma’s old room with scary dolls sitting on the shelves around the bed. Just like at grandma’s before she died. Trinity hated those dolls. She feared the dolls would come alive and come after her, so she hated to stay with her grandma overnight.
Trinity backed up to the door, but the door was gone. She turned and pounded on the wall, screaming. “Jake! Oh, please, Jake!” She glanced over her shoulder. “Calli! Troy!” she gasped when she saw something move and turned to the wall, pounding the wall.
“Trinity, what’s wrong?” several voices said.
Trinity stopped pounding her fists and slowly turned to see all the dolls staring at her. She pressed her back against the wall as hard as she could and screamed.
***********************************************************************************************************
“I wonder if the rooms are scarier. Trinity and Jake haven’t come out yet.” Troy shrugged and headed into the third room since the door was still opened. He hadn’t realized that the doors his friends had gone through were now closed. He pointed at the fourth room for Calli to go inside while he checked out the room he was going in.
As soon as he turned away from the door, the lights dimmed and the shadows around him grew. Troy wiped his face as spiderwebs slipped past his face. “Really?” He shook his head and turned to leave the room since he didn’t see anything, but the door was closed. He had left the door opened, hadn’t he? Troy shook his head, grabbed the doorknob, and turned it, pushing forward, but the door was locked. He tried again, wiggling the doorknob, but it wouldn’t budge.
“Come on,” he said and punched the door. He shook his hand and groaned as he walked away from the door. He looked back at the shadows and jumped when one grabbed at him. “No!”
Troy swatted at the shadow and jumped back, cornered. He looked around and saw a place where there was still light. He dove towards it before the shadow could grab him and crawled into the light. The shadow snapped away from him and he pulled his legs close to him. He wrapped his arms around his knees and whimpered. He always hates the dark and the shadows.
************************************************************************************************************
Calli laughed when Troy disappeared into the room and pointed to the last room for her. She walked over to it and slipped inside, wondering what fear she’d have to face in order to escape the haunter house. She feared a few things but wasn’t sure which she feared the most. Calli wrinkled her nose and brushed the webs away. She hated spiderwebs, but not to the point she freaks out. As Calli walked into the room, she thought about the things she feared. Drowning, clowns, zombies, and being alone.
Calli looked around the room, but it was no longer a room. “Where am I?” She turned and saw a long, dark hallway. She heard something down at the end and she sucked in her breath. “Troy?” Her hand ran across the wall until she found a small shelf with a flashlight on it. Calli grabbed the flashlight and turned it on to chase away the darkness at the end.
She stalked forward towards the end of the hallway, growing annoyed. “Who’s there?” Her voice shook as she grew closer to the end. When she got there, she found an empty wall. There was no door, no window, nothing. She laid her hand on the wall and wondered how she had ended up there.
She leaned against the wall and slid down until she was sitting. She listened to the hallway, but there were no signs of life. “I’m not alone…I’m not alone…” she said to herself as her flashlight flickered. Calli covered her head when the silence pressed on her. She pulled her knees to her chest, letting the almost dead flashlight fall. The glass cracked, and the flashlight died. Calli squealed when the darkness took back down the hallway, and she hid her face in her knees.
“Where is everyone? Please, someone to talk,” she cried.
**************************************************************************************************************
Jake turned around, still unable to find the opening to the cave. His breathing came out heavy as he ran down another passage, but it came to a dead end. He leaned against the cool cave wall, pressing his forehead to it. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t find the way out and he was going to die here. Jake wished he hadn’t brought his friends and his girl here. They were all going to die from their fears. Jake punched the wall and turned around, sliding down to sit on the dirt ground. He stared at the cave around him, felling like the walls were closing in on him. He closed his eyes and screamed.
Meanwhile, Trinity sat in the corner of her grandma’s room, sobbing. “No, no, please no,” she said as the dolls climbed off the shelves and crawled closer to her. Their broken smiles and glass eyes stared into her soul. “Stay away from me!”
Her anger gets the better of her and she looked around for something, anything, to stop the dolls. Trinity found a chair next to her, and she picked it up. She screamed as she charged, the dolls almost looking shocked at her. Trinity laughed when the chair made contact with the first batch of dolls and sent them flying. They shattered when either the chair hit them, or they hit the wall and other furniture.
“Yes, die!” Trinity stepped on a few of the dolls when they tried to grab her feet to knock her over. “Die, die, die!”
Trinity stared around her when she had finished destroying the dolls and laughed. “I did it! I did it,” she screamed and turned to the door. She threw the chair at it. “Open up and let me out of here.”
The chair made contact with the door and broke to pieces. As it rained to the ground, the door splintered, then burst open, revealing the upstairs haunted house beyond it. Trinity jumped up and down excitedly. She ran outside and looked around, but the other doors remained closed.
“Come on, guys,” she pleaded.
*************************************************************************************************************
Calli didn’t know how long she sat on the ground sobbing, but she was tired. She leaned her head back and stared down the hallway, her eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness. Calli wiped the dirt off her face and stood up. She stepped on the glass and glanced down. Kicking it, she growled, and she marched down the hallway to get back to where she had come through the door.
“I don’t care if I’m alone. I won’t always be alone because I have Troy, I have Trinity, I have Jake, I have my family, and I have my other friends.” Her hands balled into fists as she marched on. “I can be alone and be fine. I actually enjoyed this time being alone. I could think and hear myself actually think, which I can’t do when I’m surrounded by everyone.”
Calli stopped and laughed. “Wow, I want to be alone. I can write notes of things I need to do. I can read. I can watch the movies I want to watch.” She grew excited. “I can’t wait to be alone now.”
She turned and faced the wall where the door had been. “Now, let me out!”
The wall shook until the door popped back into existence. She shoved it open and stepped back into the haunted house. The door closed behind her and vanished. She took in a deep breath with a smile on her face and turned to see Trinity.
“Trinity!”
“Calli!”
The girls ran to each other and hugged. They had faced their fears. They looked at the closed doors and mentally told Troy and Jake to face their fears and come back to them.
*************************************************************************************************************
Troy lifted his gaze and saw the shadows reaching out to him from all sides. The light was slowly going out and soon they could get him. He pushed himself up to his feet and made sure that the darkness couldn’t touch his shoes. His breath came out fast.
“I can’t do this,” Troy said and closed his eyes. “I can’t do this.”
***************************************************************************************************************
Jake felt the squeeze in his chest as his heart hammered against it. It almost felt as if he was going to die from a heart attack. He tried to slow his breathing, and he closed his eyes. In his mind’s eye, he saw Trinity’s smiling face. He smiled as he stared into her green eyes, and he sighed. His heart slowed, his pulse slowed, and his breathing slowed.
When Jake opened his eyes, he looked around at the cave. “I have to get out of here. I need to be with my girl.”
He pushed himself up and looked around to find something he could use to mark the ways he had walked already. He found a bunch of rocks and picked them up, shoving them into his pockets. Jake walked out of where he had been and dropped a stone at the beginning of the dead end. He walked to his left and found another dead end. He grinned and Jake dropped another stone and continued to walk to the left. He found three more dead ends and one way that continued down a long, windy hallway that dipped down.
Jake dropped a stone and kept walking down the hallway. The trail in the cave curved a few times, then headed upwards. He wouldn’t let himself get excited, but he felt like he was going the right way. He hoped he was going the right way. “I’m going to find my way out of here and get back to my Trinity.”
Jake saw the end and let out a whoop. He dropped the rocks and ran to the door. He shoved it open and barreled out of the cave back into the haunted house. Trinity and Calli caught him before he tumbled over the railing and fell. The girls held him close, and they laughed, jumping together.
“Where’s Troy?” Jake asked as he looked around for his best friend.
They were about to answer him when suddenly the door where Troy had disappeared behind crumbled into nothing. Calli stared at the wall and walked closer, pressing a hand against it. She shook her head and screamed his name.
Jake and Trinity grabbed Calli and dragged her down the stairs to find the way out. She reached out to the wall up the stairs, sobbing. Jake gently took Trinity’s hands off her friend and picked Calli up. They stopped when they heard some strange noises. They looked up to see the haunted house was collapsing around them.
“Jake!” Trinity grabbed his arm, and they rushed to the front door that was open.
They ran outside and collapsed a few feet away from the door before the house destroyed itself. Calli lay on the ground, her head buried in her hands. Jake stared at the mess while Trinity gently rubbed Calli’s back.