Bogleech.com's 2013 Horror Write-off:

"Haunted House"

Submitted by General Nitpick

It was Halloween night, not too long ago, I was nineteen years old and I was going out to explore our town with two of my friends, Amber and Jackie. We were too old to trick-or-treat, but we still liked dressing up. Amber was a cat, Jackie was a zombie clown, and I was a bat. At the time, our town was really into Halloween, about half the houses turned into "haunted houses", and most of them were free. I have always been terrified of haunted houses, because I scare easily, but had never actually been in any before that night. We had been through three when we came to the next one, and my nerves were pretty shot, but I didn't want to give up and go home now.

It was at a three-story, pretty square-shaped place with a large, opened garage. A bunch of silly-cute looking cardboard skeletons were taped around the door and two happy looking jack-o-lanterns sat on each of the porch steps. I was happy, this one looked way less scary than the ones before it! I pretty much dragged my friends to the house, and the owner, who was dressed like a scarecrow, let us in by ourselves.
The entryway was dark, with spooky noises playing. The floor had a line of glowsticks placed on it as a "trail" through the place. A guy dressed as a werewolf jumped out and meowed at us, so we all laughed and headed to the next room through the door.

It was the kitchen, and all the lights were on. While most haunted houses would go with a cannibal motif for their kitchen, this one took a different approach. All the appliances, cabinets, and pretty much everything in there, had googly eyes added to them. The counters were covered in smashed eggs, and one of them had "Gestorum" written in egg yolk (I think they were trying to write something spooky, but apparently didn't realize how difficult it is to make egg yolk writing scary). A blender was rigged to start up by itself, which startled me much more than the werewolf guy did, so we followed the path to the next place.

We wound up in the laundry room, which also had the eye treatment done, and, for some reason, even more smashed eggs. Jackie joked about how they must be farmers, and stuck their hand in the yolk, smearing it around on the top of the washing machine. When she lifted her hand up, the yolk was stuck to it and seemed to be similar to bubblegum in consistency, although it looked like regular yolk. She was having a surprisingly difficult time removing the yolk from her hand, and told us to continue without her, that she would catch up. So we left her.

The next room was up a flight of stairs and to the left. We were in a kids playroom, which thankfully didn't have any egg yolk or googly eyes. It was much creepier than what we had been through so far, with creepy dolls everywhere rigged to slowly look left and right, while a barely hidden tape-recorder played spooky nursery rhymes. Amber wanted to stay behind and look at the dolls, and since the house hadn't really been scary so far, I left her there so she could check them out.

I went in the next room alone, which was a living room. I was a bit weirded out solely because I had never seen an upstairs living room before, and I was annoyed because the damn eggs were back, but this time with strips of bacon and spilled glasses of orange juice. I was tired of the egg yolk everywhere, it wasn't scary, it just grossed me out a bit, especially since one of the eggs had what looked like a half-formed baby chicken in it.

The television was on, and it was playing a loop of "scary" static, with faint whispering noises in the background. I couldn't really make out most of what they were saying, although I did hear "Gestorum" at least once. I poked my finger in the orange juice, and quickly pulled it out. I had burned the tip of my finger, it felt like I had touched a burner on a stove! I put my finger in my mouth to cool it down, and the liquid on it didn't taste like the orange juice I'm used to, it was probably old or something. Angry at myself, I stomped off out the door and into the next room.

I was confused, it looked like I was back in the kitchen again, but I've never been in a house with two kitchens. It looked almost identical to the first one, but everything was now covered completely in egg yolk and all the shells and fake eyes were missing. I couldn't see even a corner that wasn't thick with the stuff. I walked forward as best I could, but my shoes were sticking to the floor. I heard a noise coming from the fridge, and when I looked at it, the door opened, and about two dozen eggs rolled out, cracking on the floor.
I tried walking as fast as possible, but I was stuck. I heard another tape recorder start, and unlike the one in the playroom, this one was just whispering "Gestorum" over and over, getting slightly louder with each repeat. I covered my ears and closed my eyes, unable to move any farther forward or retreat out the door I had entered through. I kept trying to walk, but I couldn't even move my shoes at all. I thought about taking my shoes off, but they were brand new and I didn't get new shoes often.

By now, the tape recorder was shouting the word and I couldn't block it out of my head. There was no way my friends couldn't hear it, and I had no choice but to wait in the room, hoping my friends would show up and help get me unstuck. Then, the lights went out. I was left in a room covered in egg yolk, stuck to the floor, with "Gestorum" being screamed at me. I started to cry, snot was running down my nose and dripping on to the yolk-covered floor. I felt myself sinking downwards into the yolk, and I started to panic, even attempted to flap the fake wings I had sewn on my sleeves, but it didn't help any. I sunk down through the yolk, closing my mouth and eyes when my head went through. The yolk was very cold.

When I stopped feeling like I was falling, I cautiously opened my eyes, hoping not to get any egg in them. I was in the garage, and a woman dressed like a scarecrow was smiling at me. "Did you have fun? Was it scary?" she asked me. I just nodded at her. I saw my friends standing outside the garage, and I waved to them. "Here you go, a treat for you!" she said, and pressed something into my palm. I closed my hand around it and thanked her for it, then ran out to meet my friends.

"That was so boring! It wasn't even scary!" Amber said.

Jackie nodded. "It was stupid, I got my hand stuck in gum and the rest of the place was just silly kids stuff." I asked them about the eggs, and if they saw the second kitchen. "Nope, you must've taken a wrong turn somewhere. I wound up meeting up with Amber and walked through a playroom, two bedrooms, basement, and out the garage. We didn't even get something like you did." she sounded annoyed, and I remembered the thing I was holding.

I looked at what I was holding in my hand and nearly jumped out of my skin. It was a chocolate easter egg.