An Old Party Every Year

An Old Party Every Year

A Short Story

Written By

SpaceFaction

     A large house appears on a small island. Brandon, Jackson, Olivia, and Wendy peek around three large trees on the other side of a spooky lake with a small dock in front of them. They use binoculars to see this old house that suddenly appears there.

     Brandon holds the side of his watch to light it up. “It’s midnight on October the first. We only have thirty-one days to find out what happened to my mom before this house disappears again for another year.”

     “We have the whole month to do this,” says Jackson as he continues looking through his binoculars. “Why are we here now?”

     “Because our mom disappeared ten years ago at the end of this month,” answers Olivia. “I want to know what has happened to her too.”

     Olivia stops looking at this house. She looks at her big brother Brandon and smiles. “I have wanted to know what happened to her for the last five years. But Brandon thinks I’m too young to know why.”

     “I was only three when my mom disappeared. All I can remember is that I was just starting to enjoy Halloween but after she disappeared so did Halloween for us.”

##

     Brandon comforts Olivia in his bedroom. “They are fighting again.”

     “No, they aren’t. Mom and Dad are just disagreeing about something.”

     “I couldn’t hear them too well from my bedroom. But it sure does sound like fighting to me.”

     Brandon gets on his right knee in front of Olivia and takes her hands in his. “They aren’t fighting. It may sound like they are fighting, but they aren’t. I keep telling you they do fight sometimes. But at the same time, they don’t. At least not the way you are thinking.”

     “I’m only six. So, it’s hard for me to explain what is happening with our parents. All I know is that sometimes they disagree on something.”

     “What are they disagreeing about now?” Olivia asks.

     Brandon shakes his head no sadly. “I can’t hear what they are disagreeing about too well either. But what I can hear, is they are disagreeing about the town’s haunted house.”

     “I don’t know too much about our haunted house. All I know is that every year for October this house comes back to town. And when it leaves us at midnight on Halloween it takes some of us with it.”

##

     The four teens strip out of their outer clothing to their swimming clothes under them. They put their clothing into duffel bags before they start to step into the water there. Wendy takes a step into this water and she quickly pulls it out shivering. “This water is freezing.”

     “It’s not freezing,” says Olivia as she quickly pulls her foot out of this water. “But it is very cold.”

     “If it’s too cold or freezing, you don’t have to come with us. I didn’t want you to come anyway. You and Wendy are only thirteen. You’re still too young to be doing this. It’s too dangerous.”

     Olivia takes Wendy’s hand and they walk into the water together. Still shivering, they start swimming toward this haunted house. “We aren’t too young.”

     Brandon and Jackson looked at each other. They walk into the water and start swimming too. “I told you your sister would be coming whether you wanted her to do it.”

     “That’s why I didn’t try to talk her out of it. I knew she would just follow us anyway.”

##

     After finishing putting back on their outer clothing they sneak up to the front door on the other side of this haunted house from three different directions. Brandon and Jackson almost sneak straight for this door while Olivia and Wendy walk toward this door from opposite directions on this house-length porch.

     The four teens meet up at the front door in the middle of this porch without any problems. “Nothing happened,” whispers Brandon. “I don’t like that.”

     “I’m happy nothing happened,” whispers Olivia. “But I don’t like it either.”

     Jackson is the closest to this door. He cautiously tries the door handle. And it opens for him with some squeaking. They walk through the yellow light. The yellow lights look like lights on the outside. But on the inside it’s more like a sheet of yellow they walk through.

     After entering this house, they stop in this old lobby that leads to three hallways. “I hear some weird music,” says Wendy.

     “It’s not weird music,” says Brandon as he looks toward this weird music. “But it is old music. It sounds like it’s about a hundred years old. The same number of years this haunted house has been appearing here.”

##

     “Let’s check out this music,” says Brandon as they start walking toward this music. “Then we can look around the rest of this haunted house.”

     After they walk into a large ballroom, they suddenly stop. This music isn’t the only old thing. So is the clothing these partygoers are wearing. They look like they are a hundred years old too. The four teens look at each other with a shocked look on their faces.

     “What’s happening here?” Olivia asks.

     “I don’t know,” answered Brandon. “Maybe looking around this house will tell us what is happening here.”

     Brandon takes out his cell phone from his right shirt pocket and turns on his video camera. He places it back in his pocket, facing outward. Then he does the same thing with his other shirt pocket. Only he sets that one to take pictures. Jackson, Olivia, and Wendy do the same thing with their cell phones.

     After Brandon and Olivia take off in one hallway while Jackson and Wendy head down another hallway, Brandon starts hiding their duffel bags around the house. Olivia stops him after he places another one. “What are you doing?”

     “It’s just in case we don’t get out of here alive,” answers Brandon. “I don’t want anyone else to die too because of this house.”

####

     The four teens meet up again at the end of the middle hallway there. They start walking down this hallway all together. Brandon and Olivia take one side of this hallway. Jackson and Wendy take the other side. They start looking in each room they go by.

     Some of these rooms have closed doors and some are open. The open ones are the easiest ones to look into. But the closed ones aren’t that hard either. After all, none of them are locked. All of them are empty. Brandon and Olivia suddenly stop when they get to one of the empty rooms.

     “Isn’t that the camera mom used on her job before she disappeared ten years ago?” Olivia asks after she points at the camera sitting on the floor in the corner of the room, barely visible from where Brandon and Olivia are.

     “It sure does look like her camera.” Answers Brandon as she enters this room and walks toward the camera. Olivia is right next to him. Jackson and Wendy enter this room close behind them.

     Brandon picks up this camera. “This is her camera. “Does this mean our mom is here somewhere?”

##

     When the four teens leave the room where they found their mom’s camera, they look like everyone else in this house. Their ages are still the same, but their clothing looks a hundred years old. They look at each other and themselves. “What has happened?” Wendy asks.

     “That’s a good question,” answers Jackson. “I don’t know that either.”

     “I was about to ask that same question,” responds Olivia. “What’s going on?”

     Brandon starts walking toward the party, which is continuously happening. “I don’t know how this happened, but I think we are a part of this haunted house now.”

     “Does that mean we will disappear at the end of this month too?” Olivia asks.

     “I don’t know that,” answers Brandon. “But it sure does look like we will. That’s why I didn’t want you and Wendy to come with us. I knew something like this might happen.”

     The four teens walk into the ballroom and stop. The partygoers don’t seem to notice them. They just continue their dancing. “Something is wrong here,” says Jackson. “These aren’t the same people dancing here a few hours ago. And there are a lot more of them now too.”

##

     Brandon takes Olivia, Jackson, and Wendy back out into the lobby. “I don’t know how this is happening or why. But I think I know what is happening here.”

     “I hope that I’m wrong about it, though. If I’m right, we are in big trouble.”

     “We are already in big trouble,” says Jackson. “What do you think is happening here?”

     Brandon lowers his voice even more so that only the other three teens can hear him. “I think we are in some kind of a time warp. We have been here a lot longer than only a few hours.”

     “I hope you are wrong about that too,” says Olivia in almost a whisper. “If that’s true, our dad must be going crazy. He knows we are here. I left him a note about us coming here.”

     “Why did you do that?” Brandon asks.

     Brandon isn’t whispering anymore. He is almost yelling now. Olivia doesn’t want to answer him, but she finally does. “I didn’t want him to worry about us being out so late. If I didn’t leave him a note, he would have gone crazy worrying about where and what we were doing.”

##

     “I know it’s a long shot now,” says Brandon. “But we need to try to leave this house.”

     “How are we going to do that?” Jackson asks.

     Brandon shrugs his shoulders. “I don’t know how to do it. All I know is we need to try.”

     “I think I know how we can do it,” says Olivia. “We know we can’t use the doors. We’ve already tried them. But what about windows? There must be about a hundred of them. One or more of them should lead us out of there.”

     “That’s a good idea, Olivia,” says Brandon. “I don’t want to admit it, but it’s a good idea. Any thoughts on how we should do this.”

     Olivia looks down the three hallways on that floor. Then she looks up at the next floor. “I think we need to finish checking out this floor. Then we can split up into twos and check out the other two floors and the towers above them.”

     “Another good idea Olivia,” says Brandon. “I’ll take the right hallway. Jackson and Wendy, you take the other two hallways. Olivia, you check out the windows on the rest of this floor.”

##

     “I didn’t find a way out of here either,” says Jackson after the four teens meet back in the lobby. “I don’t think there is a way out of here. We are going to disappear too.”

     Brandon takes his cell phone out of his pocket and starts watching the videos he has taken of this haunted house. Suddenly, he stops looking and smiles. “Maybe we can’t get out of here alive. But maybe we can tell the rest of this town what has been happening here all these years.”

     “We can’t break out of here through these windows without getting hurt,” continues Brandon. “But maybe our cell phones can.”

     Olivia, Jackson, and Wendy start taking their cell phones out of their pockets. “They have a right to know too. Tell them what else you are going to do.”

     Brandon goes to the nearest duffel bag and opens it, revealing a bomb in it. “I’m not going to let anyone else disappear along with this haunted house.”

     A few minutes later eight cell phones broke through four different windows. They landed about a hundred yards away from this haunted house. Almost instantly the haunted house starts to disappear. A few seconds later the bombs Brandon has placed all around this haunted house start to destroy it before it disappears for another year.

Word Count = 1,990