MissAnthropy | Haunted

There was no sign of the summer warm, just a grey day devoid of colors. There was also no sign of former inhabitants, just a big empty house devoid of life. The only things that seemed to remain were the shadows, which actually looked more solid than the foundations over which that old decrepit building stood.

"Hey, Zuri, remind me how you found this shitty place". The smile on Carl's face is not judgemental: he is actually thinking that the old ruin is perfect for their video.

While they crossed the garden, Carl scanned the area, albeit without too much interest. Their steps were soundless against the grass, or maybe it was just the growling sound from Carl's stomach that prevented him from hearing anything else, but that at least served to pull him back to reality.

"Anybody brought a snack? I could eat something ‘fore we start shooting"

Immediately a Cliffbar pegs Carl in the shoulder, as Zuri finishes pulling herself out of the open window on the other side of the vehicle. She springs out of the car with a sharp grin crossing her face, and pulls out her phone. "It's even better than the picture..." Brushing some of her wild ebony curls out of her face she lines up the first of many pictures she expected to be taking tonight. "Come on you lazy bitches, let's get this party started!" Drumming out and trill of slaps against the van. She had been practically vibrating as they were pulling in but now she was effervescent.

Rae spent most the drive watching out of the window, her fingers tapping restlessly on her leg. Occasional attempts to check on the group social media were made, but she had too many thoughts on her mind.

As the care pulls to a stop she hops out, but while the rest start admiring the house she beelines to check on the equipment, before looking up and finally taking in the building. She throws Zuri a glance, wondering if this place would suit their purpose as she had said it would... It would make a good filming spot at least.

'We should scout out places first, before lugging the gear in. ' She half announces to the car trunk rather than the group.

Cadence quietly climbs out of the band's vehicle and goes to the back. Opening it, she pulls out the pack full of her performance ensemble, her cased bass, and her gear bag. She hoists them all up onto her back and shoulder, then closes the door and takes a few strides toward the house.

She stops short of the old stone steps and takes in the sight of the old place. There was something rotting and foul about this house and its grounds. Perfect for their new video, for their latest song, EVP. Zuri would surely extrapolate that it means Electronic Voice Phenomenon. Black grins. She had her own private little meaning for what EVP stood for.

Stephanie made sure she was quite in the centre of the group as she looked at the house.

"Well, it looks quite pale... and grim... but that's cool." she said, while silently adding in her thoughts; all the brighter I will shine in the video. "This is great production value, we'll be a hit on YouTube for sure."

She carried her microphone of course, and made sure to drag along some of the less heavy equipment.

"Sweet", Carl replies as he starts to unwrap Zuri's former cliff bar. He seems perfectly at ease with the tranquil contemplation of Cadence and Stephanie dragging the heavy stuff out of the van.

"Yeah, Rae's right, we should take a look first", he agrees, but only as an excuse to not lift anything.

Words are reinforced by actions, so Carl steps onto the front porch and holds onto the knob, which promptly disagrees.

"Door's closed", he announces to the rest of the group.

The knob is probably not a big deal, but the padlock is an unpleasant surprise, so he examines it trying to discern how shitty it is on the shitty padlock scale.

"Anyone got a bobby pin I can borrow?"

'...I have a hammer...' Rae wanders towards Carl having pulled out a large rucksack and slung it over her back. The other would know by know she kept all sort of spare bits and cables in there, along with a couple of tools, and a laptop in a padded compartment. Over her shoulder she also slings a bag with a handheld video camera. Worse quality than the big 'real deal' ones but she had suggested it might be interesting to make some shots look 'found footage' esque.

"There could also be a tire tool or a crowbar in the van, right?" Cade suggests, as she adjusts the load on her shoulder. "We should make this quick, before we all end up sleeping in the jail tonight. Not looking to be some toothless redneck gorilla girl's bitch tonight."

Zuri finished takiong pictures of the group gathering around the door, and snickers aloud as Carl starts picking the lock. "Saving this one for the Police... Everyone! Say B and E!" She takes the shot and puts her phone away to grab her personal bag, and tucking a pair of drumsticks into her belt. The rest can wait til later.

"Everybody just chill. This place is miles from anywhere. And when is the last time you had cell service, right? It's like Six. Joe Farmer Bumfuck is already asleep and the Sherrif is fucking the sheep... let's fucking rage." This was as much a vacation as shoot as far as Zuri was concerned, but she never had a great work ethic. "Are we in?"

"Wow, this place seems ancient... has no one been in here for decades?" Stephanie asks as she very carefully steps in. Slowly, one foot in front of another. Half tippy toes. As if not to disturb the furniture (or rats or spiders) that have been frozen in time here. She makes a point of not touching anything. Spiders... dust... that is something she hadn't really considered. But still...

"This is so dark and spooky. I love it. I will stand out extra shinging in this environment on video!"

Cade shrugs her pack off shoulder and crouches to dig through the side pocket. She pulls out a maglight and a collapsible baton. Shouldering her bag once more, she presses on the light and holds the beam at the floor of the porch and clicks the truncheon into extended mode.

"Try not disturb too much..." Cade says, as she crossed the threshold. "...And keep a look out for pests and poisonous spiders." She shines her light low and ahead of them so they can be sure of their footing and occasionally flicks the light upward so they don't get caught in the cobwebs; which she whisks aside with the baton.

It's good to know that Rae has a hammer, but even though Carl might look sloppy, he has higher standards wrt break-ins and so dismisses the idea.

"Not every nail needs a hammer...", he mutters wisely as he works his way around the padlock, with his tongue slightly out.

Carl's also not so sure about Cade's words, he thinks the average gorilla might very well end up being Cade's bitch, but he keeps his mouth shut. Zuri photo taking makes him frown a little, but then he remembers this is not one of his regular "jobs" and manages to relax. Success! The shitty padlock is gone and they enter the house.

The living room is quiet, hollow, frozen in time. Steph's words make him funny, it strikes him as weird to think that sometime in the past this house belonged to an actual family, maybe even a loving one, maybe even with dogs and everything. The strange feeling is shaken to pieces by something (a mouse?) that seems to move fast close to his feet and causes him to jerk and jump in its place.

"The fuck was that?", he asks pointing with his index finger to the little "mouse" that on second thought looks like just a piece of paper.

With a resting smirk on her black-painted lips, Zuri steps in passed Raechel, motioning to her to not give it away. She enters the House. Cade was going all John Wick, so she put Carl between them. But that was okay because Carl was just always a better target. Z-da-B was timing it, not really paying attention to the general creepiness and her macabre and skeptical self was more interested in goofing off.

Watching as Carl shifted his head and as he points, "Ahhhhhhhh!" Zuri was behind him screaming aloud to frighten him and the rest of the Band if possible, before devolving into laughter. She smiles as if this was all a big game to her, bumping up against Stephanie and giving a playful wink. "... I mean it... you all need to relax... This is why there are all those rumors." She walks forward to check out whatever Carl was pointing at.

Stephanie gives a little smile as Zuri screams, runs around and bumps into her.

"Sussh, will you?" she asks. "All that noise. You don't want to wake up any ghosts, do you?"

She asks it with a sparkle in her eyes and a smile on her face. They're about to be making some music in here soon anyway.
Not that Steph believed in ghosts. She did believe in rats and spiders though. And Cade's comment about poisonous ones made her glance at the ceiling and the cobwebs.

an odd, possibly panicked look crosses Rae's face at the mention of prison, and she starts to nervously tug at the hem of her shirt as the others laugh it off. She'd promised...She starts to almost seem to go into her own thoughts before the doror swings open. She glances at Zuri for reassurance, now more on not getting into trouble with police other than on any other things they may be trying to get up to, before slowly following the others in.

For a moment she just takes the room in, before suddenly remembering why they were here, and fumbling for the camera to starting to film parts before the ambience got ruined by the others moving through i. It may not get used, but too much footage was better than not enough.

At Zuri's scream she curses and nearly drops the device, even if it's not aimed at her, the young adult being easily startled.

Rae starts at the door slamming shut, and is about to complain before she freezes, staring out the window trying to process what she is seeing. A ghost? They hadn't even done anything yet.. no t she was overthinking. It had to be a person. The window was just dirty so she couldn't see properly. That was it. Not that it still wasn't a problem, given they had just broken in.

'Guys I think we just.. someone was outside. We should go, right? Before they tell someone?' Her free hand not holding the camera starts to tap against her leg in a nervous tic.

Cade directs her light's beam toward the yawning hallway. She glares back at the shut door. "Hey Carl. Check the front door would you? See if we can still open it."

Carl's a big boy so that when Zuri starts making creepy noises on his back he manages to keep his composure. Sort of. In trying to keep a placid countenance he manages to look like the screaming guy from the painting (just for a sec). He waits for Zuri to go reach what now looks embarrassingly more like a sheet of paper than an actual living rodent when the entrance door slams shut and Rae's imagination gets the better of her. Cade is telling him something, but he just stares at her with unfocused eyes.

It's been nearly three months since Carl last had any type of substance in his bloodstream so that obviously imagined giggle coming from the closet strikes him as obnoxiously odd. Also: there's fucking something in that closet. Are the hallucinations back? Should he tell something? Everybody but Zuri and to a lesser degree Steph looks a bit tense by now, but maybe he's just projecting his own unease.

"Sure thing", he replies to Cade, content to have a task that allows him to ignore what he just saw, but while doing that he has a better idea.

"Hey Cade, would you mind checking that closet? I think I've heard some noises coming out from there"

Cade nods. "Yeah. Sure. I can do that, Carl." She says pointing the end of her baton toward the doors of the small closet. "Check the front door first though. If there is a rat in the closet, we'll need somewhere for some of us to run." She adds, with a glance toward the others.

Steph grabs her phone the moment it starts ringing Micky's special ringtone.
At first the reaction of taking her phone is so natural that she doesn't even consider how weird it is that this special tone is ringing. But when she realizes that it is Micky's tune, her heart skips a beat and she nearly drops the phone as she gives a little yelp.

As the phone's screen goes blank, for a moment she thinks she imagined things... but no... she was sure of it. There had to be a logical explanation for it. Probably someone got their hands on Micky's phone. To be sure she checks her history of missed calls. But she doesn't say anything to her friends just yet. She wouldn't seem to be scared or unstable.

"The fuck is this?" Zuri mood changed with the slam of the door and while not thinking very much of the note she gripped it while turning to see plainly that the door was gone. "The fuck... where is the door?!" She moves over with Carl, looking him in the eyes, her own wide and suddenly frightened. Different from all the bravado and bullshitery, but actually worried. Moving to Steph and Rae she looks between them, hoping for some answer.

Cadence's focus is on the something in the closet. "There's no hiding in closets anymore! This is like 2022." She says almost sarcastically and bangs the end of her baton against the bowing door. "Come on out!"

She hears the commotion at the front door, but doesn't take her eyes off the closet. "What do you mean, where's the door, Zuri? What kind of crazy spook ride shit have you taken us to?"

"No door? No fucking way..."

Carl shakes his head a few times in apparent disbelief while contemplating the patch of pristine and uninterrupted wallpaper that has replaced the door. He hears Cade's words as if she is very far away, but she seems to be hinting at a possible solution to the dilemma, which at least excludes Carl's own personal theory of hallucinations, and thus the guitarist turns his head back into Zuri in search of explanations. Zuri's wide eyes are self-explanatory: no one really knows what the fuck is going on.

There has to be a rational explanation for all this.

"Calm down, everybody", he mutters while placing his hands over the wallpaper where the door stood, "Don’t let appearances fool you". It is unclear, even to Carl, to whom he's talking, albeit he's looking at Cade now. "The wallpaper must be a mechanism to blend in with the door", he explains as he continues to examine the wall. "Maybe some new fancy security system or some shit. To fool thieves and trespassers. There’s always only one reality". He's not making any sense and a part of him knows it.

"Hey, Rae, I think we could use that hammer now", he mentions while glancing at one of the windows.

Stephanie frown and giggles a little at Cade banging at the closet door. She glances and throws a smile at Zuri.

But then her focus goes to the missing door.

"Fool thieves, Carl?" she asks as she looks closely at the wall where she would expect a door. "That doesn't make sense. You would want to keep a thief out, not in."

Rae grits her teeth as everyone else seems to dismiss her comment, and make no effort to leave. She whirls around , determined to check the door herself as the other s seemed unbothered, only to once more freeze as she spots along with the rest it's disappearance.

'..Zuri.. whats going on..? This wasn't happening. Dreaming. That was it. It was just one of her weird dreams. That was all.

Ash Carl calls to her she tries to shake her head to clear it. Breath. Relax. Juts a dream, but go along with it and she'd wake up soon. 'Right. On it. She puts the camera down and fumble with her bag, before pulling out the hammer and lightly tossing it towards Carl.

Zuri narrowed her eyes, hearing Cade's bullshit start up quick, but Rae and Carl were getting ready to start tearing at the wall with the claw hammer. Looking to Steph, she notices how she was focusing on her phone. "Are you getting service?" She did not think so, but something was happening that was more attention-grabbing than a missing exit. Zuri sort of goes still, trying to think this through.

Her voice was softer, unsure of herself or what she was thinking, but getting a feeling that beating holes into the structure was not a good thing to try. "... wait... I'm not sure we should do that Rae..." She did not move to stop them, she wasn't sure what she was even saying, as she wondered if perhaps this one time ever the bullshit talk about a haunted house might actually be real.

Cade yanks at the closet door holding the baton ready to bash whatever may jump out at them. "Come on out." She says slightly annoyed by the cat-and-mouse game.

"No service," Steph complains "The stupid thing is acting all up. So much for getting a pre-release model." she shows her call history which is just dates and an iPhone 15 logo. "Garbage"

Still, she puts on the flashlight of her phone and lighted the spot where the door should have been, waiting for Rae to smash it.

Even though Carl failed physics, it does not take a physician to know that glass is an inelastic material and so whatever the fuck causes it to bounce back and push him through the air is just wrong. Beyond wrong. Like the business with the door. But having a stubborn spirit (stubborn enough to have ignored Steph's words and Zuri's warning wrt the hammer business), he does not cease to look for a rational explanation.

"Yo, what's up with that", he wonders, scratching his head, and searching around for Rae's hammer, temporarily oblivious of the other business with Cade and her closeted friend.

Cade raises the baton to bash the crap out of whatever or whoever is in the closet. When the guitar falls out, she looks at Zuri and shrugs. "Why? All I want to know is why? Why is that in this closet?"

Zuri watched with eyes wide as Carl was thrown across the room. Steph was too focused upon her phone and Rae and Cade too seemed to likewise be going frenzy for their own attention. She takes Stephanie's hand gentle and touches Rae's shoulder. "Guys! Stop! Something is happening here that a hammer cannot fix." Bringing Rae and Steph if they will follow, Zuri had moves to Carl, not seeing any injury but expecting him to be fairly. "... Carl are you okay?"

Steph puts away her phone, as Zuri takes her hand.
She was quite sure that it was somesort of pre-release glitch. What a junk.

Her eye suddently falls on the guitar that fell out of the closet.
"Oh my god! Is that Micky's ?"

She rushes towards it and picks it up in both hands, looking at it closer.

It has always been easy for Carl to know which Marvel superhero he identifies the most. He has always fashioned himself as Thor, probably due to his long, wild, blonde hair and blue eyes but obviously not accounting for his ridiculous muscle mass index which is nowhere near his more epic alter ego.

"It's ok", he tries to calm down Zuri, "Nobody messes with Thor!", he adds while lifting the hammer with his right hand.

And so the hammer bounces on the window, coming back to his rightful owner (not Rae) as a boomerang, which for a second really fits in with the whole narrative of the mighty hammer Mjölnir, and so he's surprisingly pleased. For a sec. Unfortunately pretty soon everybody (including him) realizes he's no Thor, as the hammer hits him with full force and the window remains unaltered.

So much was happening so quickly that Zuri was having trouble keeping up. The guitar was something she wanted to see up close, there was no way that was really Mickey's first guitar, but with Carl's declarations, the scene he was making took precedence. She had taken a step to get behind him, just in case it did bounce off, so when he was struck hard and knocked back, she was right there, trying her best to keep them both from tumbling down.

Stephanie let her hands go over the guitar. Even plucked the strings for a moment.
How did Mickey's first guitar get up here? She had seen it so many times. He had played songs just for her on it.

She stood up, holding the guitar in her hand. Determined to not leave it here in this spooky place.

"Hey! Watch were you throw that hammer!" she yelled as she saw the hammer flying back at Carl, while she was not even sure who threw it anyway as she was too focussed on the guitar.

Cade turns to see Carl nursing an injury. The better to take her eyes off the fondling that damn guitar. "Carl? What the fuck? What happened to you? I take my eyes off things to attend to the menace in the closet and BAM!"

As Carl focuses on trying to get out Rae nervously looks in, barely noticing the others or the guitar. How could they be focusing on anything but the lack of door?

As the hammer flies back she yelps and ducks even as it slams into their new singer.

She rushes to him and Zuri panic clear on her face. 'That shouldn't have happened, why did that happen, this is bad, this is bad.

As Cade and Stephanie start to raise her voices she snaps slightly, mostly out of panic.

' He was trying to get us out while you were looking at that damn closet, because none of you seem to care the door is fucking gone!'

Holding Carl's head as she finishes lowering him to the floor after catching him, she hadn't expected to be in this position but problems or no Carl was hurt. Zuri raises her voice trying to collect everyone's attention. "I'm telling you, this place is not a funhouse! We need to be more careful about what we do... I think this place REALLY is haunted... I know I said it was, and told you it was, but I mean like for real, for real." Looking back down to the wounded guitarist, She has Rae help lift up his shirt to look at the bruising and try to guess how bad off he was. "Carl... are you okay? Can you breathe alright?"

Steph still holds the guitar. Wondering if the house is really haunted.
Of course it wasn't... but it could explain the guitar. Right?
No, she was imagening things.

"Okay then... we gotta find a way out of here and this room really doesn't help. How about we look elsewhere for a window or a door?"

Carl can't fathom how on earth the window resisted a throw so strong that almost split his own breastbone in two. At this stage, though, he's not terribly interested in that question so much as his chest is hurting like hell and he can't breathe. The something that has cushioned the impact promptly reveals itself as Zuri, and Carl attempts a weak smile in her general direction.

"Th- Thanks, Zuri", he says in an equally weak tone while trying to keep balance.

Cade, Rae, and Steph join soon enough. Carl is debating whether he can utter another world without falling and making the whole situation even more stupid than it already was. At least Rae's words make him feel a bit more rational.

"Yo... Sorry, all. Didn't see that coming".

He can't really comprehend what Zuri's saying, but he nods his head to convey the fact that he can sort of breathe fine. He's certain all of this has some rational explanation (i.e. the window is of an extra tempered weird elastic glass) or maybe that all is just a twisted joke. Nothing seems to make much sense anymore, not even the fact that two of her beautiful friends start lifting up his t-shirt as if he's some kind of rock god (Scandinavian gods being discarded for the time being). Carl knows that's not the case, but a man can always dream (especially when the man in question almost dies from a flying hammer). He stares at Cade and is about to answer her when he catches a glimpse of a guitar in Steph's hand.

"Hey, Cade... Isn't that Mickey's"?

"Yeah That's his. I'd know it anywhere." Cade says deadpan.

Zuri pushes Carl away when he seems to be okay, not trying to hurt him just trying to get space as she turns to stare with the others in silence at the guitar. None of them needed to question it really, it was his. But why, and what does that mean? Could he be here? Since no one else was moving, she did, walking up to the guitar and bending down to lift it, with some reverence. It was not the first time today that she was thinking about when they first met, but she had trouble again remembering what his voice sounded like. She turns and looks to the group. "What do you think it means?" Asking everyone together.

"I think all of this is a horrible trip, without ever remembering taking any drugs or standing in a crowding room getting second hand off it." Cade answers, only slightly lowering the baton in her hand. "I don't want to even think about that." She waves the tip of the baton toward where the front door used to be.

"I don't know what it means. Maybe his family sold the guitar? There could be a logical explanation. All I know is that I want to find a way out of this house as soon as possible. We can shoot the video somewhere else."

She wouldn't want to grab it, just coming close to touch it and see if she understood its existence. Standing with Steph.

To avoid the guitar and the hugging thereof, Cade searches the closet and taps the back and sides to see if they sound hollow.

Cade jumps, as the huge green eye is revealed, and smacks the canvas with the end of her baton in reaction. She shines her light into the box and crouches down to pick up a couple of the pieces of mail. She looks for a processing date stamp to see how long ago these were handled in the mail system.

"These old envelops are mail from the fifties." Cade calls out to the others. "Why would anyone have mail from seventy years ago in this closest, with that." She points toward the 'Mickey' guitar "And that." She gestures toward the canvas with the big green eye.

"I guess someone bought a book on automatic writing in the 50's then. What? Didn't they just have auto complete on their phones then?"
Steph asks with a little grin that holds the middle between a joke, and hiding as if she actually ceriously asking. "What store is this anyway? That ain't Amazon..."

Cade looks straight into the yawning darkness of the one egress they have from their current location. "For better or worse, our only two options at this point, as far as I can see, are to sits her and gather dust, or see what other un-pleasurable things this house can serve up."