Chapter 4: Ghosts & S#!t

After sneaking out of school, much to Iris’s dislike of breaking the rules, the gang of teenagers began their stroll toward the speculated spooky manor. The trio from the cafeteria were the head of the group, considering that they knew the way to the haunted house.

Iris and Sandra, however, were trailing behind them, a decent amount of distance. Sandra had no interest in small talk with the catty crew, not to mention that she wanted to be a safe distance away from the idiocy that they tended to spew.

The heat sink girl didn’t recognize much of the surroundings, houses that were gradually more strangely structured with each one they passed. It was rather peculiar for her to be causally walking outside, in response she squeezed her heat packs in her pockets in fear. Not so much for the potentially ghost ridden hideout they were seeking, but more so that her body temperature was leveling at a safe range. She hid her anxiety rather well, especially when compared to her partner in crime. If there was any other reason to make herself out as braver than she was, it was for her.

Iris was rather closed up, her body made it seem like there was an earthquake, but for some reason she was the only one responding to it. Sandra began to question her decision based on the other young lady getting a quick case of the jitters, but it was too late to back out. She attempted to convince herself that the plan was for the better, but her mind was hardly a rhetorician.

She decided that it was probably best to extend a bridge between the two of them in order to exchange some help.

“Do you believe in ghosts?” Sandra quizzed as she slowed her pace in order to match Iris’s nervous waddle speed.

“W-well… i-it might be p-possible. S-sorry if i-it sounds stupid…” the girl struggled to answer, her fingers wrapping around her sharp locket in an attempt to relieve her stress with pain. Sandra was quite certain she saw blood that time around.

“No no, that’s cool. I don’t believe in that superstition, so just stay close to me. Unless I tell you to hit the deck, in which case you do the second that I say hit” Sandra pondered on it for a moment and then added “Uh, maybe don’t stay too close to me. Like, keep close, but not too close. It’s complicated.”

“N-no… I understand w-what you m-mean.”

Sandra curiously raised her brow at the equally fearless and terrified teen. “Wait, you’re not scared of me? Well, not me specifically, I more so mean the explody business.”

“No, y-you’re uh… n-nice… t-to me. I-I don’t m-mind it t-too much. P-people s-said worse t-things about y-you” the doe-like dame replied with a nervous crack of a smile. It disappeared faster than the speed of light, but Sandra managed to catch it since she thankfully didn’t blink.

A gracious grimace grew on the gruff girl’s gremlin face, the kind words of the frantic female being rather heartfelt, though she rebutted with “wait, what the s**t do people say about me?”

Iris switched her vision to inspect her feet, probably not wanting to be the one to answer that question.

“Never mind, I don’t really care. Just morbidly curious” Sandra sighed as she noticed the group ahead of them had halted.

The five ceased at the entrance of the driveway of what looked to be a condemned building, half the numbers that made up the address had fallen off. Coincidentally, one of the metal numbers that remained was six, next to that it seemed as though someone spray painted an extra two because the artist probably thought it would be a subtle, yet mind blowing touch to a house that was already claimed to be haunted. In addition to the mark of the beast, a couple windows had been boarded up, though not all.

Iris shook in a terrified awe, whereas Sandra rolled her eyes at the ‘haunted’ estate. “Pft, are you sure you guys didn’t mistake the haunted house for someone who was excited for Halloween? The only thing missing here is a black cat that just coincidentally enjoys hanging around this place” she critiqued.

The enthusiastic brunette (Carl for those who didn’t remember, Sandra sure didn’t) was quick to turn about and point at one of the non-blocked off windows “oh yeah? Well my friend Jon saw the ghost right there. She was bald, pale, and had the crooked nose of a wicked witch!”

“Aren’t ghosts supposed to be invisible?” Sandra questioned, trying to poke holes into his story if anything to ease Iris and piss off the guy. It was a win-win scenario.

“They can make themselves visible to you if they so choose to” the boy stated whilst crossing his arms as though he had settled the score.

“So, your friend was walking by and the ghost just decided to reveal itself?”

“What’s your point?”

“Why does the ghost give a rat’s a*s if someone was just walking by its house? What is it, some ghost of an old coot whose spirit was under distress because kids might walk on his lawn?”

“No, the ghost is of a young cancer patient that died before she could express her love to the one her heart sought out the most. Her soul remains unsettled and awake to spook the halls of the house she once lived in, until a young girl pays sacrifice so that she may walk amongst the living once more and fulfill what her short life had denied her” the boy explained as though they were all surrounding a campfire.

Iris looked to be under even more distress than before (if that was even possible), the ghost story had quite clearly removed any courage she had previously. Sandra was picking up on what the instigator had attempted to do by making them the target demographic for the spirit to try to consume and she wasn’t having any of it.

“Yeah, okay. Where did you hear that from?” Sandra retorted, folding her arms across her chest.

“I heard it from Jon, and he was told from a medium that that was the official story”

“Yeah, nothing but legit sources right there…”

“You’re stalling now. C’mon, are you two going in there or not. We didn’t come out all this way to tell you a ghost story.”

Sandra huffed and looked back at her protégé, whose constant jittering had seemed to cease. Instead, she more so looked like a deer in headlights, frozen like she took her surname and followed it to a tee. Sandra was worried for a second that she might’ve accidentally killed her new found friend through the cause of stress, but her light breaths showed that the theory was wrong.

“You okay there?” Sandra asked with genuine concern.

Iris broke her gaze with the fractured window and switched over to the shorter girl, with a look that actually expressed that she was scared for her life. “I-I c-can… s-see a… a gray f-figure i-in the w-window” she whispered carefully to Sandra.

Out of curiosity, Sandra looked back at the house, but couldn’t see anything in any of the windows. It still looked like an ordinary rickety building. “That’s just your mind playing tricks on you. They told you some creepy story and now you’re seeing things that aren’t there. They’re trying to psych you out, don’t let them get to you. We’ll be in and out of there in no time flat. We’ll get that mirror and then they’ll have nothing to hold over you. They’ll tell other people and then they will know not to f**k with you because you were able to do something they couldn’t” Sandra whispered back, trying to inspire confidence into a person who probably lacked more than the average shy person.

Sandra wasn’t the type of person to care much about what others thought of her, and it was a mode of thinking that she would recommend, but Iris’s case was different entirely. If Sandra could change what people thought of Iris with just one action, then it would be the equivalent of her being there to defend Iris, which was something Sandra couldn’t do for her otherwise. Perhaps it was a bit strange that the lizard blooded girl felt the need to defend her considering that she barely knew her. It could be a variety of reasons why, such as Iris reminding her of herself at a younger age (despite the taller teen being quite obviously older than her) and also having traits similar to someone she was already safeguarding.

The meekly maiden attempted to alter her vision from the possible illusion and gulped a bit of the bravery that Sandra was spewing. She nodded her head. “…O-only i-if you go… I-I’ll f-follow” she stuttered.

Sandra smiled proudly and pounded a fist on her own chest. “Don’t you worry, if this ghost tries to possess you in order to bone some boy toy, I’ll make sure she finds her way back to hell! And if she tries to possess me, then the jokes on her because she’ll probably end up killing her loved one anyways!” the rowdy runt announced as the duo marched forth into the eerie estate.

Sandra confidently ripped the front door open and took the first step into the great unknown, Iris slowly, but surely creeping in behind her.

The hinges of the port nearly threatened to pop off as it slammed shut, the chatty three left with nothing to do but wait until their rivals came storming out with either the mirror or their tails between their legs.

“Hey, does anyone actually know if there is a mirror in there or not?” the third and unnamed teenager questioned.

Carl shrugged. “If they come out with one then we’ll know. I mean, it’s a rather common household item, why wouldn’t there be one?”

Meanwhile, within the interior of the abandoned building. Sandra and company began to scope out the front entrance of the supposedly spooked space, analyzing the old dusty boots and shoes scattered around the main entrance. It wasn’t exactly the most off putting décor of the household. Immediately ahead of the duo were two paths, one that lead to the dark and creepy basement, and the other towards the living room. With Sandra’s thorough understanding of horror flicks, she deduced with ease that the basement was easily the worst idea, regardless of whether there was a ghost or not.

Iris’s arms were as close to her torso as they could be, her hyper hands clutching her necklace’s charm and balling together over her mouth. Her vibrant green eyes almost glowed in the damp darkness of the corridor they entered.

Sandra, on the other hand, led the way with a curious countenance and puffed out chest, as though she was the alpha dog in her pack. Considering that she could feel Iris bumping into her back with every step and a silent “sorry” being uttered after each light collision, it was basically a given that she was the backbone of the operation (if it wasn’t already).

After about twenty apologies, the two found themselves in the main living quarters. The floor was rather clean for an abandoned home, perhaps the ghost was accustom to sweeping the place out when it wasn’t too busy scaring off other young children. In addition to that, the furniture that was leftover were covered in withered white sheets. The most it had to offer were a couple loveseats and recliners circled around the room, a large chandelier hanging high above them being the centrepiece of it all.

Sandra chewed her cheek and cracked another heat pad on for extra warm. The place had a strange draft to it, like a window was open somewhere. Odds were there was a broken window somewhere in the next hall over that no doubt contained some sleeping chambers, but they didn’t delve so deep just yet. The first order of business was figuring out where the mirror everyone was talking about was residing.

With a quick turnaround, Sandra almost planted her face into Iris’s protective barrier of arms. She backed herself a bit and then supplied the command “alrighty, there’s gotta be a mirror somewhere in here. If not, I’d guess the bathroom next, but let’s just start here. You take that side and I’ll handle this one. I’d stay away from the middle of the room because that big a*s chandelier looks ominous as s**t. Calling attention to that thing is probably also a bad idea, so you know just avoid it altogether” the stumpy sister instructed as though she was a tour guide, pointing at the areas she was discussing.

Sandra then broke off, casually wandering over to her half of the room.

Iris, however, never broke eye contact with the burnt out light source of the chamber and hugged the wall as closely as she could which depended on how much furniture was blocking her path. At least it got her mind off the possibility of there being a ghost.

The heat sponge began her search by tearing the thin fabric off the first sofa she came across, a sandstorm of dust battered back when she did. Thankfully her glasses protected her from a slew of who knows how many harmful bacteria. They weren’t even sure why the house was condemned in the first place, and Sandra was skeptical on the fact that it being haunted was the big reason. For all they knew they just wandered into a house that was encrusted with black mold and a wide variety of mildew. The past owner could’ve been a mold enthusiast. No matter if they won the mirror, by the end of the day their lungs might not be as victorious.

Regardless of all that, the blurry eyed girl removed her specs in order to wipe them clean, completely missing the flower pot that was floating behind her head. The object merely meandered through the air until coming to a stop near the entrance of the room, where it plummeted to the ground and shattered to bits.

The sound of the small explosion was enough to attract the attention of both the girls, despite the fact that neither of them had notice its levitating powers a couple seconds ago. Sandra placed her frames back on and Iris galloped like a gazelle so that she was safely by the braver soul’s side. It was the fastest that Sandra had ever seen anyone move. In fact, she would make a commendable contender at the next Olympic games, all they would need is a questionable flying vase and the gold was as good as theirs.

Anyways, the duo inspected the impact zone from afar, noticing nothing more in the remnants besides dirt, shards of clay, and an extremely wilted violet, to the point that there was no colour distinction.

Sandra crooked her head a bit, wondering how the plant fell off the end table that she assumed it used to be resting upon. Whereas Iris came to her own conclusion and began to suggest “w-we should p-probably go…”

“Nah, those guys probably followed us in. I bet you they’re around that corner right now, waiting for us to either react or run off scared” Sandra explained, pointing out the main entry way.

The perturbed person nodded, though refused to be apart from her human safety line from that moment forward.

Just as the bolder broad decided to continue her search she instantly noticed the fact that the blanket that she had set aside a couple of seconds ago had mysteriously vanished. It was no mystery to her though. She shook her head in disappointment, unsure of what she should have expected out of the unsubtle trio.

“Goddamn it, they’re gonna try to boo-jump-scare us with a bed sheet. Seriously?”

“B-boo-ju-“

“That’s film terminology for a cheap-a*s jump at the camera with a loud stinger” she noted whilst pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose.

As the two finished babbling, the bulbs on the hanging lamp began to flicker and spark, the appliance trying its hardest to do its job. It dimmed out after a handful of tries, Iris hid her face in Sandra’s shoulder by around the halfway point. The shorter student just stood there with a rather gruff frown, not giving anyone the satisfaction for the lackluster prank.

“Leave NOW!” a feminine voice bellowed, the echo arising from the hall that Sandra had predicted the pranksters to be within.

Sandra’s back felt Iris’s continued attempts at burying herself within it, for some reason having a belief that forcing their two bodies to fuse together would somehow save them from the spectre. Meanwhile, the other girl was slowly giving their would-be haunters a couple heavy claps, spouting “oh bravo, you found the light switch, I saw that too. Weren’t you supposed to lead your spooky message with OoOoOoO?”

“W-we sh-should go” the terrified teenager whimpered to her friend, who could suddenly feel tears seeping through her jacket, sweater, and undershirt.

Sandra patted the meekly maiden’s head as though she was concerned for her child. “In a second, I wanna see how stupid this gets. Also, you might want to back up a bit, I can already feel your body heat being drained away. It’s nice and all, but you kinda need that s**t in order to survive too” she whispered easily back. With that, the two dislodged from each other, Iris backing away from ground zero whilst Sandra ventured forth in order to uncover their stalkers.

Iris bit her lips and tried to keep steady breaths, trying to syphon off the amount of courage that Sandra had been showing and replaying her explanations and jokes in her mind in order to feel more at ease with the situation.

As the heat sink crossed the living room’s equator, a figure that stood nearly as tall as Iris came around the corner and much to her speculation, they were wearing the bed sheet over them. By the looks of it though, they were standing rather statutory, without energy or fluid movement.

Sandra grew a smirk and moseyed onward to face the ‘ghost’, however, she had to look up at the rather slim figure. An airy laugh escaped through her nose as she propped her elbow against the frame of the archway. “You know, you missed an ample opportunity to jump out and shout boo, Curt” she mocked before whisking the unspectacular disguise off the figure with one mighty flick of her wrist.

Curt (Carl) was not underneath the white fabric though, as Sandra immediately found out that the culprit was as invisible as the air in front of her. Her eyes bugged out to be as big as Miller’s (which was no small feat) and was followed by an ear piercingly loud “NOPE!”

Sandra started her spooked stampede forth, considering that the hall that the ghost was residing in was the only way out that she knew of. Unfortunately for her last ditch effort of an escape plan, the first stride she took was cut short as she deflected off some sort of squishy invisible barrier. The force of impact was enough to cause the girl to stumble backwards, but she was quick to get back on balance since her adrenaline had kicked in.

“God damn solid a*s ghost!” Sandra cried out as she raced through the living room without any sort of caution, roping the frigid Iris in with her arm as she passed by.

The dynamic duo fled into the hall opposite of the exit, half of the dank doors were open, but regardless of that they stormed into the first available. The stout female body-checked the wooden port, opening it with incredible ease. She threw Iris inside, her person reacting like a ragdoll. As soon as the two were beyond the door frame, the active escapee slammed the entrance shut and barricaded it with her own body.

It was only after that point that Sandra observed that they stumbled upon the bathroom, which was unsurprisingly filthy. In addition to that, the space was about a quarter of the size of the previous room. It was the bare essentials, a toilet and sink. Though Iris seemed to have fallen upon a lovely rug that could have a plethora of diseases.

There was a bit of light though, the blinds of the window weren’t disguising the brightness of the sun all that much. Unfortunately the glass pane was barely big enough for one of them to fit through, and she wasn’t even certain if they needed to bust it open or not. Either way, it would be a bad idea. It was too tall up the wall for Sandra to jump through, and all things considered there wouldn’t be enough time for Iris to prop her up and have the timid girl to escape as well.

Iris was quick to recover from her frozen panic attack and look up to Sandra in a rather calm manner. Not completely calm, but it was a surprising amount taking her character into account.

“Y-you knocked her d-down” she spoke up in a mesmerized trance.

“What?” Sandra questioned in an unnerved state.

“T-the gh-ghost… she f-fell over when s-she… collided with y-you.”

“Holy hell, you can see the ghost!?”

“I-I guess… She’s the s-same gray p-person i-in the window.”

“Well I’ll be damned.”

“D-do you think s-she’s a t-tool?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard of an Aug with invisibility. You’d think that’d be the first they’d capitalize on.”

Iris curiously tilted her head as she finally noticed what the other girl had been doing throughout their entire conversation. “Uh… C-can’t ghosts w-walk through walls?” she suggested meekly.

Not too soon afterwards, the voice of the spectre rung once more “get out already!” Which was followed by an attempt at ramming the door down. Since Sandra was acting as a blockade, the spook was not too successful at breaking and entering.

“Yeah, I don’t think our ghost can do that. She has one hell of a shoulder, or leg. Whatever she’s using to get in here” the human wall muttered.

Iris sprung to her feet, though didn’t quite seem to know what to do with herself. She was as thick as a skeleton, so her twiggy arms weren’t going to help holding the phantom force back any. She scrambled over to the cabinets by the sink, another barge at the door causing Sandra to go a bit off balance. The lanky lady began digging through the contents of it, though as Sandra could confirm by the remnants of the search flying by her face, there wasn’t anything of use.

It wasn’t until a portable mirror swooped by Sandra’s vision that she halted Iris and tugged her a bit closer, the aggressor still pounding away at the door.

“Grab that mirror. As soon as I open the door, you run. I’ll catch up, don’t worry” she lightly breathed the plan over to Iris.

She looked nervous, as always, though she nodded and picked up the little bobble and wandered over to the back most of the lavatory. She shook in anticipation, while Sandra waited for the precise moment to release the door and cause the ‘ghost’ to topple over. It was a fifty-fifty chance that she would end up falling on top of her since there wasn’t a ton of space to maneuver. Depending on how tall the person was, she might bash her head against the toilet.

“I’m not going to hurt you, I just want you out of my damn house!” the woman continued to spout out.

“You know, you could’ve asked us to do that without doing the whole ghost act thing” Sandra sassed.

“I did!”

“Huh, actually you are right about that…” she muttered to herself.

Before either of them could spew out another line, the short fused girl decided to predict the invisible woman’s wind-up, noticing that she was resorting to full on body slams against the boarded portal, so Sandra twisted the knob and signaled Iris to stand off to the safe side of the room. Her obedient friend followed orders and soon after the plan went into motion.

The invisible broad put a full force shoulder check into the hinged plank of wood and quickly noticed the fatal flaw in her plan. The port would’ve swung open by a gust of wind, so it was fair to say she put more power in her swing than need be, gliding through the tiny corridor and crashing against Sandra, both women tumbled toward the floorboards, however, it looked like there was only one.

The gazelle girl was hesitant at first, but did as she was ordered and hightailed it out of the awful abode.

Sandra was a bit thrown off by the lack anything visible above her yet there being so much weight being pressed on her. The moment that she attempted to free herself from underneath the see-through hermit, she heard a soft crackling noise. “Oh man, I hope those weren’t my bones…” then she began to feel a warm sensation coming from her pockets. When the other woman rammed her like a rhino, she also set off all the heat pads that she had in her pockets, which was quite a few since she predicted to be outside of her house for a long time. Weighing in with the heat that she stole from Iris and the fact that the invisible assailant was pinning her down and allowing her to absorb her heat as well, she was swiftly rising to a dangerous temperature. “Oh, maybe I do wish those were my bones…”

“Let me guess, you came here because of a dare too” the imperceptible person began with a sigh, though overall gave off an air of annoyance.

“Well, yeah, you’re pretending to be a ghost, that’s probably going to attract attention, dude” she pointed out.

“I threw a chair at the last person! What does it take to keep people away? Perhaps I’ll have to leave a more permanent mark” the woman threatened, although facial expressions and gestures would be completely lost on Sandra.

The quickly overheating pygmy person bit her lower lip, slightly frightened at what the ‘ghost’ was going to do to her, but just as equally concerned for her safety as well. Her older brother got a pretty bad scar from being within close proximity of her, Sandra didn’t know what would happen if someone was pressed against her. “Maybe save that for the next person, if you take too long to decide I might explode and it’s not going to be good for either of us, trust me.”

The invisible woman flicked off Sandra’s glasses at that point. “Okay, now you’re just pissing me off” the ticking time bomb retorted passive aggressively. She then proceeded to swing a mighty kick, hitting the lower half of her enemy’s spine, her butt, or possibly her head. All she knew was that her foot made contact with something sensitive, which gave Sandra the opportunity to slide across the tiled floor thanks to the rug coating her back.

As she leapt to freedom, she felt a weakness in her abdomen. She came to a dead stop. She had no idea where to run. There wasn’t time to make it to the door and with how old the structure looked there was no way it was prepared for any sort of flash fire.

She rammed through the door opposite to the bathroom, hoping for an open window for her to hop through, but as she sprinted toward what looked to be an opening there was some sort of lab set up in the way. Sandra squinted and swore the place was straight out of any sci-fi mad scientist’s workshop design. Strange spiraling tubes, bubbling compounds for every colour of the rainbow, and soon enough fiery death.

As the girl was awestruck with her discovery, her peculiar bodily function began to ignite. Her brief analyzation was merely a couple of seconds, it wasn’t even enough time for the spectre to catch on to what was happening or recover from getting a bad kick to… wherever it was Sandra hit.

From Sandra’s stomach region, an orange pulse shimmered, a mere warning of what was to come in the next millisecond. Out from her midsection erupted a ring of flickering flames that puffed out to the world around them, latching onto anything that they deemed eatable and began chewing away. The roar of fire echoed through the halls.

The room that was once a place of discovery soon began a searing mess of blaze and heat, all of which Sandra’s body could absorb and tolerate without issue, but her mind was another thing entirely.

With the midriff of her layered attire singed completely, she sprinted away from the terror she caused, a thick and revolting black smoke replacing the breathable air. Considering all the chemicals in the room, there was no telling what she had evaporated into the atmosphere.

As she bolted away though, she heard the dismay of the ‘ghost’, though didn’t dare turn back in case the wraith would enact her wrath against her. She felt a hint of regret for not turning back around for the aggressor, but all in all she wanted to escape from the affair entirely.

Once she breached through the mouth of the house, she was met with an uproarious applause from her singular friend, the other three just seemed shocked that she was still alive. Iris looked ready to give a glomp of a hug, but the charred undercarriage of Sandra’s upper half of clothes was a cause for concern, as was the lack of the spry spirit she tended to wear on her face with pride.

The reconnected group then noticed the bellowing black smoke bursting from the building, causing them to pull their shirts over their nose and back away from whatever toxic fumes were ascending towards the sky.

Sandra pulled out her cellphone whilst watching the blurry disaster take place in front of her. Luckily she didn’t really need her glasses since she had the fire department’s number on speed dial. “Dad, yeah… it happened. No not at school, it’s at 615 Spooner Street. Not only that, there’s chemical fires. Okay, just get here as soon as you can…” she hung both her phone and head down, covering her face in shame.After sneaking out of school, much to Iris’s dislike of breaking the rules, the gang of teenagers began their stroll toward the speculated spooky manor. The trio from the cafeteria were the head of the group, considering that they knew the way to the haunted house.

Iris and Sandra, however, were trailing behind them, a decent amount of distance. Sandra had no interest in small talk with the catty crew, not to mention that she wanted to be a safe distance away from the idiocy that they tended to spew.

The heat sink girl didn’t recognize much of the surroundings, houses that were gradually more strangely structured with each one they passed. It was rather peculiar for her to be causally walking outside, in response she squeezed her heat packs in her pockets in fear. Not so much for the potentially ghost ridden hideout they were seeking, but more so that her body temperature was leveling at a safe range. She hid her anxiety rather well, especially when compared to her partner in crime. If there was any other reason to make herself out as braver than she was, it was for her.

Iris was rather closed up, her body made it seem like there was an earthquake, but for some reason she was the only one responding to it. Sandra began to question her decision based on the other young lady getting a quick case of the jitters, but it was too late to back out. She attempted to convince herself that the plan was for the better, but her mind was hardly a rhetorician.

She decided that it was probably best to extend a bridge between the two of them in order to exchange some help.

“Do you believe in ghosts?” Sandra quizzed as she slowed her pace in order to match Iris’s nervous waddle speed.

“W-well… i-it might be p-possible. S-sorry if i-it sounds stupid…” the girl struggled to answer, her fingers wrapping around her sharp locket in an attempt to relieve her stress with pain. Sandra was quite certain she saw blood that time around.

“No no, that’s cool. I don’t believe in that superstition, so just stay close to me. Unless I tell you to hit the deck, in which case you do the second that I say hit” Sandra pondered on it for a moment and then added “Uh, maybe don’t stay too close to me. Like, keep close, but not too close. It’s complicated.”

“N-no… I understand w-what you m-mean.”

Sandra curiously raised her brow at the equally fearless and terrified teen. “Wait, you’re not scared of me? Well, not me specifically, I more so mean the explody business.”

“No, y-you’re uh… n-nice… t-to me. I-I don’t m-mind it t-too much. P-people s-said worse t-things about y-you” the doe-like dame replied with a nervous crack of a smile. It disappeared faster than the speed of light, but Sandra managed to catch it since she thankfully didn’t blink.

A gracious grimace grew on the gruff girl’s gremlin face, the kind words of the frantic female being rather heartfelt, though she rebutted with “wait, what the s**t do people say about me?”

Iris switched her vision to inspect her feet, probably not wanting to be the one to answer that question.

“Never mind, I don’t really care. Just morbidly curious” Sandra sighed as she noticed the group ahead of them had halted.

The five ceased at the entrance of the driveway of what looked to be a condemned building, half the numbers that made up the address had fallen off. Coincidently, one of the metal numbers that remained was six, next to that it seemed as though someone spray painted an extra two because the artist probably thought it would be a subtle, yet mind blowing touch to a house that was already claimed to be haunted. In addition to the mark of the beast, a couple windows had been boarded up, though not all.

Iris shook in a terrified awe, whereas Sandra rolled her eyes at the ‘haunted’ estate. “Pft, are you sure you guys didn’t mistake the haunted house for someone who was excited for Halloween? The only thing missing here is a black cat that just coincidently enjoys hanging around this place” she critiqued.

The enthusiastic brunette (Carl for those who didn’t remember, Sandra sure didn’t) was quick to turn about and point at one of the non-blocked off windows “oh yeah? Well my friend Jon saw the ghost right there. She was bald, pale, and had the crooked nose of a wicked witch!”

“Aren’t ghosts supposed to be invisible?” Sandra questioned, trying to poke holes into his story if anything to ease Iris and piss off the guy. It was a win-win scenario.

“They can make themselves visible to you if they so choose to” the boy stated whilst crossing his arms as though he had settled the score.

“So, your friend was walking by and the ghost just decided to reveal itself?”

“What’s your point?”

“Why does the ghost give a rat’s a*s if someone was just walking by its house? What is it, some ghost of an old coot whose spirit was under distress because kids might walk on his lawn?”

“No, the ghost is of a young cancer patient that died before she could express her love to the one her heart sought out the most. Her soul remains unsettled and awake to spook the halls of the house she once lived in, until a young girl pays sacrifice so that she may walk amongst the living once more and fulfill what her short life had denied her” the boy explained as though they were all surrounding a campfire.

Iris looked to be under even more distress than before (if that was even possible), the ghost story had quite clearly removed any courage she had previously. Sandra was picking up on what the instigator had attempted to do by making them the target demographic for the spirit to try to consume and she wasn’t having any of it.

“Yeah, okay. Where did you hear that from?” Sandra retorted, folding her arms across her chest.

“I heard it from Jon, and he was told from a medium that that was the official story”

“Yeah, nothing but legit sources right there…”

“You’re stalling now. C’mon, are you two going in there or not. We didn’t come out all this way to tell you a ghost story.”

Sandra huffed and looked back at her protégé, whose constant jittering had seemed to cease. Instead, she more so looked like a deer in headlights, frozen like she took her surname and followed it to a tee. Sandra was worried for a second that she might’ve accidently killed her new found friend through the cause of stress, but her light breaths showed that the theory was wrong.

“You okay there?” Sandra asked with genuine concern.

Iris broke her gaze with the fractured window and switched over to the shorter girl, with a look that actually expressed that she was scared for her life. “I-I c-can… s-see a… a gray f-figure i-in the w-window” she whispered carefully to Sandra.

Out of curiosity, Sandra looked back at the house, but couldn’t see anything in any of the windows. It still looked like an ordinary rickety building. “That’s just your mind playing tricks on you. They told you some creepy story and now you’re seeing things that aren’t there. They’re trying to psych you out, don’t let them get to you. We’ll be in and out of there in no time flat. We’ll get that mirror and then they’ll have nothing to hold over you. They’ll tell other people and then they will know not to f**k with you because you were able to do something they couldn’t” Sandra whispered back, trying to inspire confidence into a person who probably lacked more than the average shy person.

Sandra wasn’t the type of person to care much about what others thought of her, and it was a mode of thinking that she would recommend, but Iris’s case was different entirely. If Sandra could change what people thought of Iris with just one action, then it would be the equivalent of her being there to defend Iris, which was something Sandra couldn’t do for her otherwise. Perhaps it was a bit strange that the lizard blooded girl felt the need to defend her considering that she barely knew her. It could be a variety of reasons why, such as Iris reminding her of herself at a younger age (despite the taller teen being quite obviously older than her) and also having traits similar to someone she was already safeguarding.

The meekly maiden attempted to alter her vision from the possible illusion and gulped a bit of the bravery that Sandra was spewing. She nodded her head. “…O-only i-if you go… I-I’ll f-follow” she stuttered.

Sandra smiled proudly and pounded a fist on her own chest. “Don’t you worry, if this ghost tries to possess you in order to bone some boy toy, I’ll make sure she finds her way back to hell! And if she tries to possess me, then the jokes on her because she’ll probably end up killing her loved one anyways!” the rowdy runt announced as the duo marched forth into the eerie estate.

Sandra confidently ripped the front door open and took the first step into the great unknown, Iris slowly, but surely creeping in behind her.

The hinges of the port nearly threatened to pop off as it slammed shut, the chatty three left with nothing to do but wait until their rivals came storming out with either the mirror or their tails between their legs.

“Hey, does anyone actually know if there is a mirror in there or not?” the third and unnamed teenager questioned.

Carl shrugged. “If they come out with one then we’ll know. I mean, it’s a rather common household item, why wouldn’t there be one?”

Meanwhile, within the interior of the abandoned building. Sandra and company began to scope out the front entrance of the supposedly spooked space, analyzing the old dusty boots and shoes scattered around the main entrance. It wasn’t exactly the most off putting décor of the household. Immediately ahead of the duo were two paths, one that lead to the dark and creepy basement, and the other towards the living room. With Sandra’s thorough understanding of horror flicks, she deduced with ease that the basement was easily the worst idea, regardless of whether there was a ghost or not.

Iris’s arms were as close to her torso as they could be, her hyper hands clutching her necklace’s charm and balling together over her mouth. Her vibrant green eyes almost glowed in the damp darkness of the corridor they entered.

Sandra, on the other hand, led the way with a curious countenance and puffed out chest, as though she was the alpha dog in her pack. Considering that she could feel Iris bumping into her back with every step and a silent “sorry” being uttered after each light collision, it was basically a given that she was the backbone of the operation (if it wasn’t already).

After about twenty apologies, the two found themselves in the main living quarters. The floor was rather clean for an abandoned home, perhaps the ghost was accustom to sweeping the place out when it wasn’t too busy scaring off other young children. In addition to that, the furniture that was leftover were covered in withered white sheets. The most it had to offer were a couple loveseats and recliners circled around the room, a large chandelier hanging high above them being the centrepiece of it all.

Sandra chewed her cheek and cracked another heat pad on for extra warm. The place had a strange draft to it, like a window was open somewhere. Odds were there was a broken window somewhere in the next hall over that no doubt contained some sleeping chambers, but they didn’t delve so deep just yet. The first order of business was figuring out where the mirror everyone was talking about was residing.

With a quick turnaround, Sandra almost planted her face into Iris’s protective barrier of arms. She backed herself a bit and then supplied the command “alrighty, there’s gotta be a mirror somewhere in here. If not, I’d guess the bathroom next, but let’s just start here. You take that side and I’ll handle this one. I’d stay away from the middle of the room because that big a*s chandelier looks ominous as s**t. Calling attention to that thing is probably also a bad idea, so you know just avoid it altogether” the stumpy sister instructed as though she was a tour guide, pointing at the areas she was discussing.

Sandra then broke off, casually wandering over to her half of the room.

Iris, however, never broke eye contact with the burnt out light source of the chamber and hugged the wall as closely as she could which depended on how much furniture was blocking her path. At least it got her mind off the possibility of there being a ghost.

The heat sponge began her search by tearing the thin fabric off the first sofa she came across, a sandstorm of dust battered back when she did. Thankfully her glasses protected her from a slew of who knows how many harmful bacteria. They weren’t even sure why the house was condemned in the first place, and Sandra was sceptical on the fact that it being haunted was the big reason. For all they knew they just wandered into a house that was encrusted with black mold and a wide variety of mildew. The past owner could’ve been a mold enthusiast. No matter if they won the mirror, by the end of the day their lungs might not be as victorious.

Regardless of all that, the blurry eyed girl removed her specs in order to wipe them clean, completely missing the flower pot that was floating behind her head. The object merely meandered through the air until coming to a stop near the entrance of the room, where it plummeted to the ground and shattered to bits.

The sound of the small explosion was enough to attract the attention of both the girls, despite the fact that neither of them had notice its levitating powers a couple seconds ago. Sandra placed her frames back on and Iris galloped like a gazelle so that she was safely by the braver soul’s side. It was the fastest that Sandra had ever seen anyone move. In fact, she would make a commendable contender at the next Olympic games, all they would need is a questionable flying vase and the gold was as good as theirs.

Anyways, the duo inspected the impact zone from afar, noticing nothing more in the remnants besides dirt, shards of clay, and an extremely wilted violet, to the point that there was no colour distinction.

Sandra crooked her head a bit, wondering how the plant fell off the end table that she assumed it used to be resting upon. Whereas Iris came to her own conclusion and began to suggest “w-we should p-probably go…”

“Nah, those guys probably followed us in. I bet you they’re around that corner right now, waiting for us to either react or run off scared” Sandra explained, pointing out the main entry way.

The perturbed person nodded, though refused to be apart from her human safety line from that moment forward.

Just as the bolder broad decided to continue her search she instantly noticed the fact that the blanket that she had set aside a couple of seconds ago had mysteriously vanished. It was no mystery to her though. She shook her head in disappointment, unsure of what she should have expected out of the unsubtle trio.

“Goddamn it, they’re gonna try to boo-jump-scare us with a bed sheet. Seriously?”

“B-boo-ju-“

“That’s film terminology for a cheap-a*s jump at the camera with a loud stinger” she noted whilst pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose.

As the two finished babbling, the bulbs on the hanging lamp began to flicker and spark, the appliance trying its hardest to do its job. It dimmed out after a handful of tries, Iris hid her face in Sandra’s shoulder by around the halfway point. The shorter student just stood there with a rather gruff frown, not giving anyone the satisfaction for the lackluster prank.

“Leave NOW!” a feminine voice bellowed, the echo arising from the hall that Sandra had predicted the pranksters to be within.

Sandra’s back felt Iris’s continued attempts at burying herself within it, for some reason having a belief that forcing their two bodies to fuse together would somehow save them from the spectre. Meanwhile, the other girl was slowly giving their would-be haunters a couple heavy claps, spouting “oh bravo, you found the light switch, I saw that too. Weren’t you supposed to lead your spooky message with OoOoOoO?”

“W-we sh-should go” the terrified teenager whimpered to her friend, who could suddenly feel tears seeping through her jacket, sweater, and undershirt.

Sandra patted the meekly maiden’s head as though she was concerned for her child. “In a second, I wanna see how stupid this gets. Also, you might want to back up a bit, I can already feel your body heat being drained away. It’s nice and all, but you kinda need that s**t in order to survive too” she whispered easily back. With that, the two dislodged from each other, Iris backing away from ground zero whilst Sandra ventured forth in order to uncover their stalkers.

Iris bit her lips and tried to keep steady breaths, trying to syphon off the amount of courage that Sandra had been showing and replaying her explanations and jokes in her mind in order to feel more at ease with the situation.

As the heat sink crossed the living room’s equator, a figure that stood nearly as tall as Iris came around the corner and much to her speculation, they were wearing the bed sheet over them. By the looks of it though, they were standing rather statutory, without energy or fluid movement.

Sandra grew a smirk and moseyed onward to face the ‘ghost’, however, she had to look up at the rather slim figure. An airy laugh escaped through her nose as she propped her elbow against the frame of the archway. “You know, you missed an ample opportunity to jump out and shout boo, Curt” she mocked before whisking the unspectacular disguise off the figure with one mighty flick of her wrist.

Curt (Carl) was not underneath the white fabric though, as Sandra immediately found out that the culprit was as invisible as the air in front of her. Her eyes bugged out to be as big as Miller’s (which was no small feat) and was followed by an ear piercingly loud “NOPE!”

Sandra started her spooked stampede forth, considering that the hall that the ghost was residing in was the only way out that she knew of. Unfortunately for her last ditch effort of an escape plan, the first stride she took was cut short as she deflected off some sort of squishy invisible barrier. The force of impact was enough to cause the girl to stumble backwards, but she was quick to get back on balance since her adrenaline had kicked in.

“God damn solid a*s ghost!” Sandra cried out as she raced through the living room without any sort of caution, roping the frigid Iris in with her arm as she passed by.

The dynamic duo fled into the hall opposite of the exit, half of the dank doors were open, but regardless of that they stormed into the first available. The stout female body-checked the wooden port, opening it with incredible ease. She threw Iris inside, her person reacting like a ragdoll. As soon as the two were beyond the door frame, the active escapee slammed the entrance shut and barricaded it with her own body.

It was only after that point that Sandra observed that they stumbled upon the bathroom, which was unsurprisingly filthy. In addition to that, the space was about a quarter of the size of the previous room. It was the bare essentials, a toilet and sink. Though Iris seemed to have fallen upon a lovely rug that could have a plethora of diseases.

There was a bit of light though, the blinds of the window weren’t disguising the brightness of the sun all that much. Unfortunately the glass pane was barely big enough for one of them to fit through, and she wasn’t even certain if they needed to bust it open or not. Either way, it would be a bad idea. It was too tall up the wall for Sandra to jump through, and all things considered there wouldn’t be enough time for Iris to prop her up and have the timid girl to escape as well.

Iris was quick to recover from her frozen panic attack and look up to Sandra in a rather calm manner. Not completely calm, but it was a surprising amount taking her character into account.

“Y-you knocked her d-down” she spoke up in a mesmerized trance.

“What?” Sandra questioned in an unnerved state.

“T-the gh-ghost… she f-fell over when s-she… collided with y-you.”

“Holy hell, you can see the ghost!?”

“I-I guess… She’s the s-same gray p-person i-in the window.”

“Well I’ll be damned.”

“D-do you think s-she’s a t-tool?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard of an Aug with invisibility. You’d think that’d be the first they’d capitalize on.”

Iris curiously tilted her head as she finally noticed what the other girl had been doing throughout their entire conversation. “Uh… C-can’t ghosts w-walk through walls?” she suggested meekly.

Not too soon afterwards, the voice of the spectre rung once more “get out already!” Which was followed by an attempt at ramming the door down. Since Sandra was acting as a blockade, the spook was not too successful at breaking and entering.

“Yeah, I don’t think our ghost can do that. She has one hell of a shoulder, or leg. Whatever she’s using to get in here” the human wall muttered.

Iris sprung to her feet, though didn’t quite seem to know what to do with herself. She was as thick as a skeleton, so her twiggy arms weren’t going to help holding the phantom force back any. She scrambled over to the cabinets by the sink, another barge at the door causing Sandra to go a bit off balance. The lanky lady began digging through the contents of it, though as Sandra could confirm by the remnants of the search flying by her face, there wasn’t anything of use.

It wasn’t until a portable mirror swooped by Sandra’s vision that she halted Iris and tugged her a bit closer, the aggressor still pounding away at the door.

“Grab that mirror. As soon as I open the door, you run. I’ll catch up, don’t worry” she lightly breathed the plan over to Iris.

She looked nervous, as always, though she nodded and picked up the little bobble and wandered over to the back most of the lavatory. She shook in anticipation, while Sandra waited for the precise moment to release the door and cause the ‘ghost’ to topple over. It was a fifty-fifty chance that she would end up falling on top of her since there wasn’t a ton of space to maneuver. Depending on how tall the person was, she might bash her head against the toilet.

“I’m not going to hurt you, I just want you out of my damn house!” the woman continued to spout out.

“You know, you could’ve asked us to do that without doing the whole ghost act thing” Sandra sassed.

“I did!”

“Huh, actually you are right about that…” she muttered to herself.

Before either of them could spew out another line, the short fused girl decided to predict the invisible woman’s wind-up, noticing that she was resorting to full on body slams against the boarded portal, so Sandra twisted the knob and signaled Iris to stand off to the safe side of the room. Her obedient friend followed orders and soon after the plan went into motion.

The invisible broad put a full force shoulder check into the hinged plank of wood and quickly noticed the fatal flaw in her plan. The port would’ve swung open by a gust of wind, so it was fair to say she put more power in her swing than need be, gliding through the tiny corridor and crashing against Sandra, both women tumbled toward the floorboards, however, it looked like there was only one.

The gazelle girl was hesitant at first, but did as she was ordered and hightailed it out of the awful abode.

Sandra was a bit thrown off by the lack anything visible above her yet there being so much weight being pressed on her. The moment that she attempted to free herself from underneath the see-through hermit, she heard a soft crackling noise. “Oh man, I hope those weren’t my bones…” then she began to feel a warm sensation coming from her pockets. When the other woman rammed her like a rhino, she also set off all the heat pads that she had in her pockets, which was quite a few since she predicted to be outside of her house for a long time. Weighing in with the heat that she stole from Iris and the fact that the invisible assailant was pinning her down and allowing her to absorb her heat as well, she was swiftly rising to a dangerous temperature. “Oh, maybe I do wish those were my bones…”

“Let me guess, you came here because of a dare too” the imperceptible person began with a sigh, though overall gave off an air of annoyance.

“Well, yeah, you’re pretending to be a ghost, that’s probably going to attract attention, dude” she pointed out.

“I threw a chair at the last person! What does it take to keep people away? Perhaps I’ll have to leave a more permanent mark” the woman threatened, although facial expressions and gestures would be completely lost on Sandra.

The quickly overheating pygmy person bit her lower lip, slightly frightened at what the ‘ghost’ was going to do to her, but just as equally concerned for her safety as well. Her older brother got a pretty bad scar from being within close proximity of her, Sandra didn’t know what would happen if someone was pressed against her. “Maybe save that for the next person, if you take too long to decide I might explode and it’s not going to be good for either of us, trust me.”

The invisible woman flicked off Sandra’s glasses at that point. “Okay, now you’re just pissing me off” the ticking time bomb retorted passive aggressively. She then proceeded to swing a mighty kick, hitting the lower half of her enemy’s spine, her butt, or possibly her head. All she knew was that her foot made contact with something sensitive, which gave Sandra the opportunity to slide across the tiled floor thanks to the rug coating her back.

As she leapt to freedom, she felt a weakness in her abdomen. She came to a dead stop. She had no idea where to run. There wasn’t time to make it to the door and with how old the structure looked there was no way it was prepared for any sort of flash fire.

She rammed through the door opposite to the bathroom, hoping for an open window for her to hop through, but as she sprinted toward what looked to be an opening there was some sort of lab set up in the way. Sandra squinted and swore the place was straight out of any sci-fi mad scientist’s workshop design. Strange spiraling tubes, bubbling compounds for every colour of the rainbow, and soon enough fiery death.

As the girl was awestruck with her discovery, her peculiar bodily function began to ignite. Her brief analyzation was merely a couple of seconds, it wasn’t even enough time for the spectre to catch on to what was happening or recover from getting a bad kick to… wherever it was Sandra hit.

From Sandra’s stomach region, an orange pulse shimmered, a mere warning of what was to come in the next millisecond. Out from her midsection erupted a ring of flickering flames that puffed out to the world around them, latching onto anything that they deemed eatable and began chewing away. The roar of fire echoed through the halls.

The room that was once a place of discovery soon began a searing mess of blaze and heat, all of which Sandra’s body could absorb and tolerate without issue, but her mind was another thing entirely.

With the midriff of her layered attire singed completely, she sprinted away from the terror she caused, a thick and revolting black smoke replacing the breathable air. Considering all the chemicals in the room, there was no telling what she had evaporated into the atmosphere.

As she bolted away though, she heard the dismay of the ‘ghost’, though didn’t dare turn back in case the wraith would enact her wrath against her. She felt a hint of regret for not turning back around for the aggressor, but all in all she wanted to escape from the affair entirely.

Once she breached through the mouth of the house, she was met with an uproarious applause from her singular friend, the other three just seemed shocked that she was still alive. Iris looked ready to give a glomp of a hug, but the charred undercarriage of Sandra’s upper half of clothes was a cause for concern, as was the lack of the spry spirit she tended to wear on her face with pride.

The reconnected group then noticed the bellowing black smoke bursting from the building, causing them to pull their shirts over their nose and back away from whatever toxic fumes were ascending towards the sky.

Sandra pulled out her cellphone whilst watching the blurry disaster take place in front of her. Luckily she didn’t really need her glasses since she had the fire department’s number on speed dial. “Dad, yeah… it happened. No not at school, it’s at 615 Spooner Street. Not only that, there’s chemical fires. Okay, just get here as soon as you can…” she hung both her phone and head down, covering her face in shame.

Author's Note

Here's the fourth chapter to this title. Just give it your honest opinion (and by that I mean I'm willing to give you cold hard cash (if you don't live two blocks down from me, we'll talk about shipment) to make me sound like a masterful genius).