Ch. 1 “Hello, My Name Is…”
“…Antonio Vladimir Arkaos Joseph Methuselah Stefano Isaac Lucas Matthias Nikolai Johann Mihkael Sabastion Mattimayo Ricardo Maximillian Leonardo Enzo Von Astor Bromley Seaford Cogner Winslow Corbin Isham Lechmere Mansfield O’llendorff Pangborn Darby.”
“…the third.”
Things I hate: introductions and people who make me repeat my name. It’s super long. I don’t know why, but my parents decided to give me this name. I usually go by Isaac Astor Bromley because those are my favorites. I used to use a different one each day, but people started to die. So I stopped.
Anyways, it’s the first day at a new school. In the middle of October. It’s so stupid. Out of nowhere, my parents decided to move, so now I’m a month behind on the curriculum and I have no friends (Not that I had many to begin with). And it’s not like one will just fall out of the sky…
BAM!

“Ow, my face!”

…But of course, God made this happen just to spite me. I later found out that this strange individual who now sits next to me is called Pete the Ninja. As implied, he thinks he’s a ninja and falling through ceilings is a common occurrence.

Anyway, seeking human contact I decided to sit by him at lunch.

“Konichiwa! You’re the new guy, right?” he said as I sat down.

“Hey…” Good start “Uh… yeah, I guess. We have history together…”

“Oh yeah! You sit in the desk next to me.”

“Yeah…” Hooray for human-type communication.

After lunch, I drudged through the rest of my classes. Not surprisingly, the rest of the student body seemed as bored as I was by the end of the day.
As much as I disliked it, I did learn one thing today: Pete lives two houses down the street from mine. He’s an okay enough guy, but the proximity of his house to my own is rather unnerving. I’ll learn to deal with it…somehow. Anyway, I would just like to say that as traumatizing and stupid as today was, it didn’t suck that much.
…Relatively. I’ve had some really bad days. Also I think one of my teachers may be an undead zombie. I’ll look into it more eventually.
Chapter 2: Home Life, if you can call it that…
The first thing that anyone will notice about my ‘new’ home is that it is the oldest one in the town. On second thought, maybe next-oldest in town (the oldest belongs to a classmate of mine who I suspect to be a vampire). I think that it’s kind of cool that I have my own tower, but I often wonder about the purpose that it would have served for the original owners. Anyway, besides being old and creepy, this house is quite empty. There is little furniture and for the most part there are many boxes that have yet to be unpacked. This is because my parents (who just had to move) are not home all that often. I don’t wish to bore you with details so let’s just say they have complicated jobs which require them to go on long trips. Like, to Russia. And Hawaii. And Japan. And England. (etc., etc., etc.)
So it’s mainly me in this big, creepy house all alone. To most people this would seem like a teenager’s dream. In reality, it’s cataclysmically boring not having anyone to talk to. When I’m not shoveling through homework, I experiment with home appliances, read novels, comics, and other literature, dabble in the arts (a.k.a. doodle in my math notebook) and mindlessly play videogames. At night, I dress up like a wombat and fight crime. Okay, not really.
Besides all that, I take care of my two cats Gideon and Ilsia. Ilsia is a snooty purebred who acts stuck-up to everyone she disapproves of (specifically, everyone). In general she isn’t much for company and can be rather bossy at times. Gideon, however, is another story and a much more interesting one at that.
The basic description of Gideon is a black, short-haired stray with what looks like a crescent moon of white fur over his left eye. I first met him a few years ago while walking home from school (The one from about four or five transfers ago). Anyway, to get to my house from school I had to walk past a cemetery. As I was walking by I saw him sitting on the gate. He then proceeded to follow me home. When I got to the front door he stopped at the threshold and looked at me as if waiting to be granted passage. Then I shut the door. After a few minutes I went back out to check if he was still there, and he was. This sort of became a habit over the next few days: He would follow me to and from school and then wait outside my front door until night. Eventually I felt kind of bad and decided to splash Holy Water on him. Considering that he didn’t melt, I let him in. I figured that as long as he wasn’t evil it would be alright to let him in. Ilsia was less than pleased to be sharing the house with another cat but she’s never happy anyway.
Gideon is a great listener and good friend to have around, not to mention the fact that he saved my life twice. The first time I was almost hit by a car when he head-butted me out of the way. The second time was when the house was on fire and he dragged me out while I was asleep. He also has a blog that he updates regularly. I’m not even kidding. He not only comprehends the English language but can somehow use a keyboard with paws. I have this one theory that he is in fact possessed by the spirit of a teenage kid who died. It’s a crack theory at best, but it is plausible.
Anyway, that’s pretty much my home life (Or at least what I find to be the most interesting. Now that I think about it, I really haven’t said very much about myself, have I?) Maybe later I’ll write some more about my personal life (But only if I really feel like it).
Chapter 3: You don’t know Jack…
It’s now the second week that I have been attending this school. I have now verified that one of my teachers is, in fact, a zombie. Don’t ask how I found out (it involves a student getting his brain eaten), just know that his name is Professor Zedd and that from now on I absolutely have to get my History homework done.
Anyway, that’s not what I was going to say. At about 9:40 AM during Biology, there was a knock at the classroom door. The teacher stopped the lesson to go and see who it was. Upon opening the door, he quickly slammed it shut, flopped onto the floor in a cold sweat, and began muttering to himself. When one of the students dared to see what the matter was, he turned white as a ghost and repeated to the class what the teacher had been mumbling.
“Jack is back…”
These three words sent the entire classroom into a flurry of screaming and cowering, and I even think someone may have wet himself. This included everyone in the class except for Pete, and of course, myself. I had no reason to be upset due to my lack of knowledge who this “Jack” character was and Pete was sitting calmly with the same happy-go-lucky expression that he always has on his face (Or at least the part that’s visible from behind his mask).
Right when I was about to turn and ask Pete who Jack was, my question was preemptively answered by a psychopath with orange hair who entered the room by kicking the door off of its hinges (Even though it was unlocked). He then skipped over the teacher, who was still rolling on the floor, and made his way over to the front of the room, snickering like a madman. Next, he stood facing the chalkboard, adjusting the cuffs of his slim, sickly green jacket in an almost theatrical way and smoothed back his ratty mess of hair. He grabbed a piece of chalk and appeared to be preparing to write his name out. This was not the case. Jack crushed the chalk into dust with his bare hand and blew the millions of particles onto the floor. With a blood curdling screech, he carved his name into the chalkboard with his fingernail:

JACK OLIVER LANTERNS

“Hey gang! Guess who’s back!” said Mr. Psychopath.

At this point one of the students decided to try and escape by jumping through a second story window. Luckily for him it was garbage day and the open truck bed just happened to be directly underneath the window and he landed safely on his clavicle. By now, the teacher had summoned what little courage he had and was able to crawl back to his desk.

“W-would everyone p-please return to their d-desks?” he said, almost ready to faint.

“In a minute, teachy. I’m catching up with some friends.”

“O-okay, Mr. Lanterns, sir. Y-you take all t-the t-time you n-need.”

Jack made a beeline straight for Pete, knocking over desks and furniture. With a devious grin he sat down behind Pete. It was then that I noticed the black triangles around his eyes.

“Hey buddy. How have you been?”

“I’m good. Fell through the ceiling again, though,” replied Pete.

“Yeah, they don’t make rafters like they used to. So who’s the new guy?”

“Oh, this is Isaac.”

As if snapped out of a dream, I realized that I would actually have to talk to this lunatic. I was not expecting that when I got up this morning.

“Um… hey.” Once again, my mastery of linguistics proves phenomenal.

“Nice to meet’cha. Hold on a second.”

Suddenly this psycho jumped onto my desk and whipped out a scythe. He swung it and slashed the teacher’s desk in half and ran out of the room, cackling like an idiot. After a minute of sheer perplexity, I asked Pete what had just happened.

“That’s just how Pumpkin-head is. One minute he’s discussing foreign politics, the next he’s going on a crazed rampage with a chainsaw. Both his parents are psychologists and they convinced him at an early age that he was crazy.”

So his own parents drove him nuts. Boy, can I relate. I’m still wondering where he was keeping that scythe, though…
The rest of the day continued as usual, but when I got back to my house there was a cheeseburger on my welcome mat. I asked Pete about it and apparently it means that Jack and I are friends now. Or something…
And that’s pretty much it. I’ve been going to this school for two whole weeks and I’ve already become best friends with a klutz of a ninja and a deranged ginger. So much for being a normal teenager.
Chapter 4: Ninjas, Gingers, and Demons on Halloween
Yesterday, during lunch Pete asked me if I would want to do something over the weekend, seeing as it was going to be a three day weekend for Halloween. My lack of other social obligations left this time open.
“Yeah, I’m free. What did you have in mind?” I asked, unknowingly opening up a big, big can of stupid. Pete replied with a statement that worried me greatly.
“I don’t know… Jack? Any ideas?”
I’m still not used to having a psycho-ginger as a… friend? Is that the word I’m looking for? I could not understand why Pete would ask a loony like him for ideas. Of course, my perceptions of Pete are irrelevant in light of the fact that I can’t comprehend how Pete is able to eat solid, Brain-meaty cafeteria food without removing his mask… Logic seems to have a limited application at this school.
After very little thought, Jack replied, “The Westburn Estate”, in the eeriest voice he could muster, not much creepier than his normal tone of insanity. At that, others around us fell silent, except for a few whispers of “Westburn” or “Are you going to eat that? It was only on the floor for like five days.” This happens a lot, actually. For some odd reason people usually grow silent whenever Jack says something. Maybe it has something to do with their uncontrollable fear of him. Or maybe they are all just mentally stunted by the tranquilizers that the lunch ladies put in our food. Otherwise, this is irrelevant to what happened.
Anyway, the Westburn Estate is just a rundown old mansion on the other end of town. Apparently there had been some ghost sightings there, along with a couple of hauntings and a slew of murder-suicides or something. Jack lives near there so he thought it would be convenient.
And that’s how I ended up on the front stoop of this creepy old house. It’s not as old as my own house, though it is a lot creepier and dilapidated. Being the timely person that I am I showed up about thirty seconds before the agreed upon time, 8:37 pm. I really don’t know how we came up with such an odd time. After about two minutes of waiting I got bored and decided to have a look around outside the place.
It really fit the profile of every other haunted house that ever existed. Ever. It looked like they made it as a replica to the house in “Zombie Zlasher 7”, that movie where people had to pronounce “seven” like “zeven” for copyright purposes. There were cracked brick walls, broken windows, cobwebs as thick as denim, and a creaky iron gate, a standard of any old house. There was a bird bath that had toppled over long ago, laying broken and eroded on the front lawn. Apart from the brown patches of grass the only other thing that seemed to be alive in the yard was the rosebush along the front of the house; not even birds were flying around. Crows would have made a lot of sense but I guess they had their own commitments to attend to. It was also strange that I didn’t see any cars go by since I entered the property. When I arrived there were plenty of cars driving by, but now there was nothing. I walked back to the road and then some cars went by. Then I walked backwards to the house. No cars. Back to the road, there were cars. Walk back to the yard, no cars. This was kind of fun but then I got a little lightheaded from running.
Suddenly, the wind picked up and of the windows came crashing down to the ground from the second floor. There was a flutter at the drapes and then the wind died down. I got the feeling that the window had been punched out, seeing as how it had flown straight across the yard and that there was no way in HELL the wind could have blown it that far. Then Pete and Jack showed up outside of the gate.
“Where were you?”
“We want to Star Schmucks. Sorry, we forgot to get you something.” Pete was as apologetic as ever. So I hit him.
“DEAD ARM!” A warning is simply a courtesy that I believe in.
“OW!”
I hate missing a trip to Star Schmucks. First, they were late and had neglected my need of intense amounts of caffeine. Second, I missed the opportunity to talk to Scarlet, one of the baristas at the coffee shop. I guess she goes to our school, although I’ve never actually seen her there, but she’s pretty cool. She knows a lot about astronomy, has great taste in music, and she can make an amazing caramel frappe. She has cool purple hair, she’s shorter than me by about five inches, and she has a really pretty smile.
…
That’s for reference. I don’t really like her or anything, she’s just a nice person… Really. Shut up now…
So we’re at the front door and Jack asks “How do we get in?” He tried the knob a few times with no success.
“Jack, this was your idea, you figure it out” I said, a little irked. Now I wish I had kept my mouth shut. Jack got a look on his face like a really stupid dog trying to remember where he buried a pineapple. Then he went over to the cracked part of the wall and pulled a brick out. He threw it over the gate, into the road and from the loud screeching and swearing I think he hit his mark.
“Jack, what the Hell?! We’re trying to get inside!”
“Oh, right. Move a little… A little more. Left. No, my left. Wait, that is my left. My right then. Yeah perfect.” Neither Pete nor myself moved at all during Jack’s dialogue.
Then Jack dove face first through one of the ground floor windows. I really don’t get this guy’s ideas. Or how he can manage to not be turned into meat-pulp, considering the number of windows he jumps through on a daily basis.
“The front door was unlocked, Jack. You were just turning it the wrong way,” said Pete.
“Don’t care! That was more fun anyway,” he said, picking glass shards out of his hair. Maybe I should pick up a shock collar… for insurance…
The inside of the house was in as much disrepair as the outside, with the addition of dust and terrible furniture. There was a picture frame on the wall as we walked in but there wasn’t a picture in it to display. Next we found what appeared to have been a living room with a door connecting to study. I use the term “living room” lightly. Uncovering the furniture from their ghostly white sheets revealed a well worn lavender colored couch with grotesque hound shaped carvings for arm rests and lions for the decorative head rests. The fireplace had an elaborate mantle with a ram’s head mounted above it. By the look of it I would say about a few thousand moths had had their way with it. Pete tripped on the edge of a rug, kicking up a hectic storm of dust all around the room. To avoid suffocation we fell out the door back into the hallway.
“Pete, do I have to rearrange your feet for you!?” Jack was pulling a saw out of his pocket.
“No, sorry. I didn’t see that rug there.”
“Are you sure? I haven’t gotten a chance to use this yet… heh-heh…” Now I’m definitely getting him a shock collar.
According to every horror movie ever, the basement is the last place you want to go if you plan to live through the night. We had to fight Jack almost tooth and nail to keep him from going down there. Instead, we went to the upstairs to try and find any signs of what happened to the previous owners.
Compared to the downstairs the upstairs was a lot creepier. Every door we walked through seemed to be more haunted than the last. In one room there was a rope dangling down from the ceiling with a stained chair underneath. I really don’t want to speculate on what I thought it was.
“Is this like an antique bathroom or something?” I don’t think Pete realized what the coppery-brown substance was. The next room we went into had a crib and some stuffed animals.
“Will you be my fr-CHANK!” went a doll as Jack sliced its head off.
“I don’t think that was a ghost, Jack.” I said
“I know, but it was still evil.”
We made our way to the next door. As I reached for the knob I felt a chill roll up my spine. I’m not sure what it was, but something made me feel like we shouldn’t go in there, like we wouldn’t like what we would find. With a sudden burst of courage I thrust the door open.
There, sitting in a chair with nothing but a singular candle lighting the room was the very spawn of Satan himself.
“Oh, I wasn’t expecting company this late. Come on in, I was just reading a book.” Said the black haired, dark eyed fiend, sitting in an easy chair, reading SuperSpace Angel Love GoGo, one of those popular Mangas. Not sure if his outfit was for the sake of promoting his father’s work or if he just liked wearing anarchist type clothes; ripped jeans, studded pentagram belt, a striped bandana and an unbuttoned button-up sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
“Who are you?” asked Pete as we inched our way into the room.
“My name is Damien, the 8th prince of Hell, son of Satan, Lord of Darkness and Evil. And you are?”
“Hi, I’m Pete.”
“Nice to meet you, Pete. Wait, Jack, is that you?”
“Damien?” questioned Jack, who suddenly acted a lot more sane than usual. “When did you get back?”
“I just moved back in this morning. Styx Co. is starting a branch office in town and I’m supposed to run it while my father is out on… business.”
“So are you going to be attending school with us?
“Hell yeah I am! Remember how much fun we had in elementary?
“Totally. I still have the scythe you gave me.”
“Olbrecht is still pissed that we took it. And who is this?”
“I’m Isaac.”
“Very nice to meet you as well, Isaac. Have a complimentary Evil-chan Demon Plushdoll.”
“Um… thanks, I guess.”
Evil-chan is one of the most sought after collectables in the entire world and this guy is just handing them out. How much money does Styx Co. make?
“How much are souls going for these days?” I blurted out, not thinking that it might offend Damien. He however, had some indignation in his tone.
“I’m not sure, you would have to ask my father about that. I’m more interested in physical property. Also, I was going to ask why you broke into my home.
“Well Jack thought that it would be fun to spend Halloween in a haunted mansion, so here we are.
“This house is pretty beaten up.” said Damien.
“Oh, and someone broke your window.” said Jack, clearly trying to pin his destruction on someone else.
“That is rather unfortunate. Why, look at the time. My show is going to be on in any minute. Would you care to spend some time watching Samurai Morning Sun with me?”
“I love that show!” replied Pete, and our fate was sealed.
We spent the night over at the house of this demon prince, and I should add that I did enjoy myself, though his assortment of snacks was rather… foreign to me. All he had was vegetables because the housekeeper had not bought any chips or soda yet. Jack made a joke about raw human flesh to which Damien simply replied that they were all out, though they would be stocked by morning. I later found out that that was when the housekeeper did the shopping.
Odd things happen to all people, odder things to odder people, naturally. I simply wish to live as naturally as I can, for the time being. All adventures start with people coming together, and this time, mine starts with friends.