Betrayal at House on the Hill: Comes the Hero (Pt. 1)

Hey there, Gamers! I thought it might be a fun change of pace to share with you a short story I wrote for my final English class in college based off the classic, gateway game Betrayal at House on the Hill. 
As the title suggests, this is based on the Haunt Comes the Hero, so here is your official Spoiler Warning in case you haven't played that Haunt and don't want any of the details. 
I have taken a few creative liberties with the characters and plot, of course, to create more of a narrative and less of a rule set, but it's all for fun, so I hope you enjoy! Here's also a slight Mature Warning for you, for a little "foul" language here and there. Nothing you wouldn't fully expect some teens to say, but never hurts to warn ya. I'll post this in a few different segments, so don't be surprised by some cliffhangers!
Disclaimer: Of course, I do not own these characters or any part of the game of Betrayal ​in general; again, this is all in good fun. 

We thought it was a good idea; it seemed fun at the time. What bad could come from roaming around an abandoned house at night? We figured if the cops didn’t catch us, it was no harm.
​We didn’t know what was going to happen that night.
No one could have had any idea…



* * * * * *

---

I checked my watch for the tenth goddamn time, 10:44 p.m. If Heather didn’t hurry up we were going to be late. I didn’t know what she was getting ready for; no one was even going to see her. I went back upstairs, careful not to hit the creaky floorboard outside our parents’ bedroom, and nudged open her bedroom door.

“Heather,” I hissed into her room. It was so dark in there I didn’t understand what she could have been doing.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” she mumbled back. She finally emerged from the darkness, with too much makeup on her face, and stumbled as she finished putting on her shoes and shutting the door behind her.

​“Shh, you’re gonna wake mom and dad,” I whispered through gritted teeth. She gave me a disgusted look and rolled her eyes. “And you look like a prostitute.” She jabbed at my ribs as we crept back downstairs. I hated the punk sometimes; I was only bringing her along so she didn’t tell our parents I snuck out. We each grabbed a flashlight and we headed out into the night.

* * * * * *

We were meeting my girlfriend Vivian at the old, creepy house on Birch Hill. No one had lived there for years, and the thing had been falling apart for as long as we could remember. We wanted to go up there and see if we could find out once and for all if it was actually haunted. I dared Vivian to stay there past midnight, but she said she’d only do it if I joined her. I couldn’t pass up a perfect chance to scare her. It was only a bonus really that I got stuck taking my sister along, because it meant I could scare the piss out of both of them.

We got to the house at 10:58, just two minutes before we were supposed to meet Vivian. I saw a shadow move out of the corner of my eye near the bushes to the left of the front door. I thought it might be Vivian trying to be sneaky, but when I turned around toward Heather I saw Viv getting ready to pounce on her from behind. I forgot about the shadow right away.

“GOTCHA!” she yelled as she grabbed my sister from behind. Heather let out a high-pitched scream that caused me to run over and cover her mouth.

 “That is not how you avoid getting caught, dumbass,” I said.

 “Calm down, Darrin. No one’s gonna hear us from way up here,” said Vivian. “Leave her alone.” She was too nice to the brat sometimes. “Now are we going in, or not?” I gestured to the door in a  ‘ladies first’ fashion. I couldn’t wait to get inside and make them both cry in fear.

We stood in the pitch black front hall smacking our flashlights, which had mysteriously shut off. We were working only with the faint glow of the moonlight from the cloudy windows and the opened door, at least until that started to fade...

We heard the door slam behind us. Heather screamed again, and I just glared at her, not that she could probably see my face.

“That’s not funny Darrin!” she yelled.

“Me? You think I did that? How the hell could I have shut the door when I’m standing next to you?” She didn’t have a response to that, so she just whimpered. We kept smacking our flashlights, hoping that would somehow get them to work, but not even one flickered.

“You von’t be able to use zose here,” we heard a heavy accent say from nearby.

“Wh-wh-who’s there?” asked Heather. Suddenly a bright light appeared, as well as the person holding the lantern it was coming from. He was an old man, completely bald but with a full beard and mustache, and he had beady black eyes hidden behind his large round glasses.

“I am Professor Longfellow,” he said, “unt you must be some idiot children from town koming to ruin my vork.”

“What are you, like French or something? What the hell are you doing in Cropseyville?” I asked him.

“He’s German, you nitwit,” replied Vivian, smacking me. I rolled my eyes. I didn’t care, all I wanted to know was what he was there, especially at the same time as us.

“I am a Professor of zhe paranormal. I’fe been studying zis house vor years, unt I am finally here to figure out once unt for all vat is haunting it.” I couldn’t help but laugh in his face.

​“You’ve gotta be shitting me,” I said. You’re so full of it.” Heather and Vivian scoffed at me. I guess it was good they believed this crap, it’d be easier to scare them later.

“You kan’t use your flashlights because zhe house is schutting them off,” he said. “It doesn’t vant you shnooping around.” I rolled my eyes.

“So you’re trying to tell me that the house is not only haunted, but like, alive or some crap? And it’s trying to stop us?” He nodded. I laughed at him, I couldn’t help it. “Okay old man.”

Daaa-riiin.

I turned to Heather. “What?” She looked back confused. “You just said my name.”

“I…I didn’t say anything…” she responded. She looked terrified. I figured it must have just been the stupid wind blowing the trees outside, and I misheard, so I ignored it. “What if it’s true?” Heather whispered to me. I also ignored that. I wasn’t about to start believing in ghosts and other paranormal bull just cause some old German guy was in the house.

Suddenly there was a crash from a window behind us and after all the dust had cleared there were two little kids standing there. “Shit, kids?” I said under my breath. “Who are you two?” They looked confused and they were dirty from coming in through the musty window. The boy looked like he was about twelve or thirteen, but the girl couldn’t have been more than nine.

“Peter Akimoto,” the boy said, extending his arm to one of us at a time, “Amateur Scientist. I’m here to collect dust samples for my experiments. And this is my sister…” he turned, but she was no longer next to him.

“You look very strong,” said the girl, coming up behind me. “You’re like the Hulk.”

“Actually, they call me ‘Flash,’ because I’m fast.”

“They call me Zoe, because it’s my name,” she said with sass and started swinging a teddy bear she was holding back and forth while walking back toward Peter. I wasn’t about to start my babysitting career here, I had to move the night along.

“Look, I don’t care who any of you are or why you’re here. We’re here to explore this house and that’s what we’re going to do. You can join us or split up, just don’t get in our way.”

“We should stick together,” Vivian suggested, “you know, just in case.”  I glanced at my watch. The time had stopped at 11:05, but we’d been in here longer than five minutes, I figured the battery must have died.

“Well, my watch is broken. So I guess you’ll just have to stay here until sunrise,” I said to Vivian, pulling her close to me. She looked scared and I took the opportunity to run my
fingers up her arm like spiders. She jumped away from me.

“Cut it out Darrin.” I saw a shadow behind the group going toward an adjacent room.

“Did you guys see that?” Everyone turned and then shrugged. I thought I was starting to lose it with everything I was seeing and hearing that no one else was, but I tried to continue ignoring it. “Let’s go.”