Spooky Skeletons | Year 2
Our House [One-Shot/Drabble Collection]“Okay, okay! Gather aroun-”
“-my little children, eeheehee!” Junghae cackles like a mad woman with her green colored flashlight, rudely bumping Mama Junhee out of the living room door frame. She moves her body around the others – like those pesky zombies hired for a haunted house – as they come pouring into the living room, carrying blankets and pillows, all giving her a look and avoiding her like some plague.
“Yo isn’t that a quote from Hocus Pocus?” Luhan asks with a grunt at the end as she and Misook finish moving the coffee table out of the way. The three youngest pile and roll to the floor that’s open for them, giggling and playfully shoving one another.
“OMG that’s what we should be doing!” Baekhee turns with a gasp and gestures as if she’s in a play and she’s the main lead. Someone kicks the back of her head and she can’t figure out which of the three worms it was.
A heated discussion forms within seconds over movies and which are the good comedy horrors verses horror horrors. And apparently amidst the listing Kyungri and Misook are the only ones to find The Exorcist a comedy – everyone else strongly disagrees.
Junhee stands off to the side – or back since she hasn’t moved since she was pushed – and watches ten of her renters hash out useless arguments about their movie tastes. Her face isn’t her usual stern expression but instead it’s the definition of a loving parent. They’re loud, she thinks, arms full of M&M bags, nuts, pretzels, cheese puffs and Goldfishes, but they’re like family.
“I already miss how we spent last Halloween.” Kris walks up to her with a playful tone; her smile loud and clear. “I’m getting a headache just thinking about how the other holidays will be like.”
Junhee peers up to Kris and catches her closing her eyes and mouthing words with a smile that the smaller woman is quickly infected by. “Let’s look on the bright side, Kris.” Junhee humors her, “At least we’re not spending the holidays alone.”
“I don’t know~” Kris chimes as she nudges Junhee’s shoulder with her elbow, almost tipping over the caramel popcorn to the floor. “I think we had a really good time~”
Junhee, momentarily flustered, attempts to shove Kris like she did to her but ends up bumping her chest into Kris’ arm. Kris chuckles at her weak attempt which triggers Junhee’s face feeling like it’s on fire and her body littered with fire ants.
“Oh my God, Mom! Stop breathing over the popcorns!” Seyun howls like a whining kid, gesturing toward the three bowls that Kris has in her arms.
“Breathing, you say?” Kris repeats with a grin. The moment she inhales everyone loses it and then groans and whines once Kris releases her breath over the bowls.
“Disgusting!” Chanyoung roars with laughter that others follow suit.
“Hey!” Kris starts, abandoning Junhee and walking toward the sitting ducks, “At least I brush my teeth.” Ooh’s and Ew’s are shared toward Chanyoung who tries her best to convince them that she too brushes – twice a day too!
As Kris finally settles down on the covered floor (with playful bickering with Chanyoung) and places the three popcorn bowls – Classic, Cheddar Cheese and Caramel – onto the ground Junhee makes it over and gently lays all the bags next to them. In seconds, each bowl of popcorn is mixed.
“So how do we do this?” Jungin pips the question after everyone has more than two handfuls of mixed popcorn. But it seems to have fallen on deaf ears because everyone continues to eat.
Junhee, hearing the question, rushes to pick out the red M&M’s from her handful and gives them to a very needy Seyun who cheers and dumps them into the cheddar cheese bowl with sound effects of a boiling witch brew. It’s a bit weird and Junhee debates giving the kid more but hey, it makes her happy so why not? Junhee downs her first handful.
“Like who starts is what you mean, yeah?” Luhan pops a cheese puff into one by one, finding herself laying on her side with her head propped up by a hand.
“That’s,” Junhee starts before someone else can, “That’s right. But I don’t really have any stories and well; I might have not gotten so far in reading on what to do…” She goes quiet and shyly gets another handful to pass Seyun her M&M’s.
“Did you really look this up?” Junghae laughs, “Oh man, is this in, like, one of those family fun activities you always Google?” She throws popcorn but it’s quickly batted away by Kris’ hand.
“Haha, very funny.” Kris gives Jungdae the eye, “How about we start but you can only tell stories that you’ve personally experience. No spooky story from the internet or family or friends. All real.”
Kyungri raises her hand and Kris nods at her, “Okay but what if you have ‘spooky stories’ but you don’t believe in ‘spooky things’, does that mean they’re quote unquote still real?” Although Kyungri didn’t make quotations, everyone heard them.
“Oh that’s a good question.” Misook says with a mouth full of Goldfishes that might actually be her twentieth bag. Someone’s gunna have to bring in the second box before she finishes them all.
Kris kinda wants to bang her head against a table but it’s too far away. “Yes.” She deadpans.
“I’ve got some short ones.” Misook shallows her snacks, “This one time-”
“Start it like a story!” Seyun boos. Misook snaps her head toward the younger and throws a Goldfish at her. Seyun catches it with like a trained puppy.
“As I was saying,” the oldest resumes, “this one time when I was seven I saw a apparition-”
“Wow so spooky! I’m shaking in my boo- OW!” Seyun softly rubs at her wound courtesy of Kyungri who sits at her left.
“Thank you. Let me restart: I was at my grandparents’ house to spend Christmas with like we do every year along with my mom’s other siblings and their kids.” Misook then holds an index finger up, “First off, there weren’t many rooms for eight more people despite the four rooms since my younger aunt and uncles still lived with their parents then. So us kids, with our mom’s, slept in this fairly large front room that’s right next to the front door and is often used as the decoration room where we’d later place the tree. Anyways, it’s probably the middle of the night-”
“Probably?” Baekhee repeats which trigger Misook to scout the room and find that everyone looks pretty bored. She was never a good story teller in the first place, time to up her game.
Misook sits up straighter causing her cover to drop to her lap and begins her tale but with a softer tone, “Around the witch hour, give or take, because I remember feeling so, so cold when I had awoken with a jolt on the air mattress. I was dazed from sleep but I sat up and looked passed the pretty Christmas curtains I helped my grandma put up to the calm winter night. The moon, although not full or new, was bright like a light and its rays of white shone down and played with flakes of falling snow. It was beautiful, really. Just like tonight.” She whispers, her eyes dancing to each person in the room and smiling once she notices that half of them are spooked.
If possible, the circle of friends grew closer since the beginning of Misook’s tale. Maybe they were scared because it’s cold, dark and quiet. The only sources of light are from the flashlights and lanterns.
Misook abruptly snaps her head to the side where she could see the door way from the corner of her eye then looks back to Zitao who gulps frightfully. Misook narrows her eyes, “The corner of my eyes – that’s when I saw it.” She leans back, her expression troubled, “Down from the hallway of the doors to everyone’s room it came. Black, fuzzy and quick. It ran – no, it zigzagged from wall to wall until it was in front of me, right at the end of the hallway and the beginning of the small entrance foyer to the room I slept in-”
Zitao whimpers and someone sniffles; Misook decides it’s time to use hand gestures.
“It’s small, so very small.” She creates the illusion within her hands, “Like the size of a puppy or kitten but no matter how small it appeared I was frighten. It didn’t move nor did I. I didn’t dare move my eyes from it but I had to blink and when I looked back, it wasn’t there but instead feet away from the foot of the bed.” Her hands land on her covered feet and grips them as if she’s scared, “It sat, or stood, right under a little corner table next to a Dalmatian statue that’s holding an unlit lantern. Its fuzz rotates around its body like static. We stare each other down. I’m scared, scared, scared. I want to wake my mom up or jump and rush to turn the lights but I’m scared. My body starts to tremble and that’s when it makes its move.”
Something from outside taps gently at the living room window but it sounds more like a gunshot as everyone makes a commotion but Misook continues her voice painting the perfect picture of panic on everyone’s face.
“It darts straight to the foot of my bed and I scream for the one second it takes to dash to the bed and disappear from my sight. Lights flood the room but it doesn’t calm me. I’m crying, I’m shaking, I’m staring and pointing to the foot of the bed, muttering “it’s there, it’s there” until someone looks and says that there’s nothing. So I look.” Misook voice chokes up, “And I find nothing.”
Not a word is said after Misook finishes. The only sounds are the breathy whimpers of the sacred and the howling snowy wind that accompanies.
Chanyoung’s voice makes a few jump, “Is that… the end?” Everyone turns to Misook whose face quickly forms a cheerful smile.
“Yup! Story’s done but if you want another I have one where I saw an apparition coming from my grandparent’s room three months before my grandma die-”
“No!” Junhee cuts in with a timid smile, “I mean no please. And my condolences.” She bows her upper body, “Now let’s pass the torch, ah ha.”
Sighs of reliefs are heard and passed as everyone decides who to go next.
Yixin raises her hand, “Oh I have a pretty spooky tale.” Her smile is like an angel and her dimples allow her to go next. “Thank you um, how do I start… oh! So you all know that I come from a healing family but I never told you what kind of healing-”
“Medicine duh.” Luhan cuts in.
“Well yes but that’s the path I choose. You see, everyone else in my family is a spiritual healer; I’m the black sheep.” It’s like a punch in everyone’s gut, and they all know where she’s going with this, “It’s passed down to the women in our blood line. My great-grandmother is a very excellent healer; she’s healed illness, depression, cancer, wounds and has even done dozens of exorcisms before, one on my older sister in fact.” Yixin is smiling likes it’s a great achievement and it sends shivers down everyone’s spine.
“Wait, wait. Back up. Is that your story, abou-about your sister?” Jungdae inquires.
Yixin turns to Junghae and smiles sweetly, “Yes actually. My mom and I were a part of the-”
“Okay this. Sorry Yixin, you’re a doll but anything spiritual on this.” Junghae raises her hands up in surrender and laughs a very weak laugh. The woman might not be scared of the whole shazam of Halloween but when it comes to spiritual things like that, Junghae puts her foot down and runs. Zitao, Jungin, Baekhee and Chanyoung agree to the moon and back on Junghae’s proposal.
Yixin feels a bit heartbroken that they don’t want to hear her story but she also understands that seven out of twelve of them are scaredy-cats, eight including herself.
Junhee tries to med the hurt for Yixin by saying that she can tell her story but Yixin decides she shouldn’t because it’s a very terrifying story that even she has nightmares about. Yixin would rather not trouble them with it.
“Then I have one.” Kyungri breaks the chatter.
Everyone goes dead quiet because Kyungri has a story and Kyungri hardly ever has a story to tell.
Kyungri clears her suddenly burning throat, “I won’t tell it like a story, I’m just going to list bullet points so follow and don’t interrupt.” Her eyebrows narrow just a fraction but it’s enough to get each person to nod. “I saw a dead body when I was sixteen; right outside our apartment’s patio and up against someone’s car – all shot up and lifeless. Ended up being the kid next door to us that lived with his aunt; body was dumped to die.”
Chanyoung couldn’t help but feel a shiver sprint down her spine at how nonchalant Kyungri is with her words and her description of the after math. She makes herself smaller as Baekhee and Zitao glue themselves to her sides.
“-after that night weird things started to happen. Sometimes we’d find dead birds on the patio, or sometimes we’d hear stomping coming up our steps-”
Junhee wants to do nothing but run upstairs and hide under her blanket. She actually can’t pinpoint why Kyungri’s “bullet point” story is scarier than Misook’s but it is. She blames at how quiet everyone is and how still they are sitting and you know what? She blames the whistling wind outside that's making everything inside ten times spookier.
She kinda regrets this activity now.
“-others would be random doors shutting or opening, door knobs not turning, pictures falling off the wall, birds flying into our apartment-”
Luhan, for a second, pictures birds flying into an apartment but a sound from outside her imagination makes the birds flop dead. She snaps her eyes to Kyungri and watches the shadows of snow paint the side of Kyungri’s face.
“-sleepless nights because you feel like someone is watching you sleep from your bedroom window and those three knocks on the windows or walls that you shouldn’t an-”
Baekhee’s banshee cry is so loud that almost no one else hears the sound of the fallen picture frame from the wall behind Yixin but it’s enough to cause a frighten panic.
Popcorn is scattered on the floor along with its respectful mixes; blankets were thrown and everyone is practically huddle away from Yixin’s spot. They all stare at the missing picture frame.
Kris somehow gets out of Junhee’s and Jungin’s arms and says in a shaky voice, “Who wants to sleep in my bed?” Hands are shot up along with their body as nine women clog up the stairs to the bedrooms.
(“Wow nice prank Kyungri. Never’ve thought you had it in you.” Junghae congratulates the shorter women with a rough pat on the shoulder.
“What prank?”
Junghae looks to Misook and Misook looks to Junghae.
“The… picture frame?” Misook says unsurely.
Kyungri blinks and it’s the clearest answer Junghae and Misook will ever get.
The stairs up is crowded once more.)
A / N:
this was written 2hrs a day for three days cuz that's the only peace and quiet time i had ;-;
over 2k something words so it's longer then the rest. holday specials are gunna be long.
it might not be the best it could be but i wanted to be on time. and not like most "group tells spooky stories".
fun fact #1: Kris and Junhee actually spent the houses first halloween, christmas and new years together before everyone else moved in hences Year 2
might not come back to edit and proof read lmao
send in prompts if you still wish to :D
(thank you to MissMinew for feeding this halloween oneshot<3)
Until next random Monday!
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