It was the evening before Halloween, and my girlfriends and I had decided we were up for the local haunted house, Fright Night. Yet, as we mustered up enough courage to walk through the door after purchasing the overpriced tickets, we all began to second guess ourselves. Suddenly, my cell phone began to chant the tune of a popular song that we all recognized from the Hip-Hop station. My friends all started singing at the top of their lungs, and I burst out laughing. I flipped open my phone.
“Hello?” I said.
“Hey, baby.” It was my boyfriend, Tim. “You’re coming to my Halloween party tonight right? I wanna give you a little scare!”
“Sorry, Tim, but my I’m having a girls’ night tonight. Actually, I’m already at the haunted house.”
“Oh. Alright, bye.” He hung up the phone.
I could tell he was mad, but I was having too much fun with my friends. We all proceeded into the musty house after I was finished with my call. It was more frightening than any of us had imagined. It was completely dark aside from the strobe lights in some of the rooms that were reflecting on blood-chilling images that would remain imprinted in our young minds forever. There were black costumed characters sauntering through the house carrying real chainsaws and knives. Was this even allowed? I thought to myself. The lady at the ticket counter had assured us that this was a safe and fun haunted house, but now I wasn’t so sure.

We all latched on to each other and made our way through the house with caution. My hands dripped with sweat as I glimpsed caped figures trailing behind us. Unidentified creatures popped out at us from every corner, and the rooms held terrifying scenes of things like people’s heads being chopped off. Each time, I told myself it wasn’t real and continued on.

We eventually made it out of the daunting house and sprinted – as so nothing would catch us – to the Suburban that we had borrowed from my friend’s mom. Only four of us had gone, so we occupied the front four seats.

“Crap. I’m on empty. Start looking for a gas station,” my friend Michelle said.
“We’ll be fine. I’m scared and I just want to get home. It’s already 11:30,” another said.
“No. I’m stopping. I’m not going to be stranded out here when I run out of gas,” she replied.

We spotted a Speedway a little up the road, and Michelle pulled off the road, parked in a spot, and got out of the SUV. She proceeded to fill the tank, when all of a sudden, the worker from the store came sprinting up to our car. I sat in the car watching, my eyes wide and skin pale as if I’d seen a ghost. He motioned us all out of the car.
“What’s going on?!” I asked.
“There’s just a slight problem with this tank. Please come inside,” he said.
“We’ll just move to a different one,” said Michelle.
“No. You need to come inside. Please just trust me,” he replied.
He grabbed Michelle by her hair and started to drag her behind him. My friends and I burst out screaming and Yolanda, who had a black belt in karate, practiced her skills and knocked the guy out cold. We all leaped into the car and Michelle floored it out of the station. We were speechless as we thanked our lucky stars that Yolanda was such a ninja. We regretted that we had always begged her to skip practice to go to the mall with us. She suddenly halted the car and we all jerked forward.
“What the heck?”
“Shh. What is that behind you??”

I turned to look and found myself face to face with the shimmering gleam of a razor-sharp machete. It was tightly gripped by the hand of a black figure. The figure looked suspiciously similar to the ones that curdled our blood earlier that night. The figure pinned me to the floor of the Suburban and held the giant knife to the tender skin on the nape of my neck. He swiped off his black mask as my friends’ jaws dropped.
“Tim?” one of them said.