Creepshow

“No, I can’t, but…” Tedd shriveled a little under the combined glare. “Look, think about it from a logical standpoint. You open a haunted house for Halloween.”

“The best haunted house ever.” Grace crossed her arms.

“Right, as you said. People start out with your creepy cult theming and eerie ambiance, which sort of draws them in and gets the anxieties up.”

“It’s just good horror tropes in play, right.” Ellen squinted a little.

“You give them a bunch of lesser jump scares, and a few moments that are just plain eerie, including the one where one of you comes out, improvs a short ritual, and hands one of the guests a snake skull, then walks away with no explanation.”

“I found a bag of like two hundred of them at the flea market.” Ellen nodded a little bit. “Plus they’re all garter snake skulls, so they have itty bitty teeth. If that’s the logistical part you have an issue with…” 

“No, no, keep following me here. Then they get to the climax, the ridiculously long hallway with the concealed nook where Sarah’s waiting with the TF gun that you snuck from the lab, and they get shrunk to 70% of their normal size while unnaturally-huge Justin chases them with a cleaver.”

“Right again.” Grace remained unmoved. 

“THEN Sarah hits Justin with another transformation that gives him spines and purple skin, which amps up the freaky factor.”

“Right.”

“And all that culminates with giant possibly-demonic Justin chasing them out a long hallway into the parking lot, with Sarah waiting in yet another hidden alcove to zap them back to full size.”

“Right. So what’s the big problem here? I thought we had everything under control!” Grace threw her arms up as Tedd sighed. 

“What happens if someone’s too fast for Sarah to zap back to full size and they just sprint out the door in their still-shrunken state?”

“Oh, that?” Ellen rolled her eyes, a smile finally breaking out. “We’re going to have one of those buzz-you-out locks in the alcove. Sarah won’t let anyone out until she’s zapped the whole lot of them.”

“Oh. Well, in that case, I retract my complaints. Got room for a not-quite-dead corpse in one of the rooms?” 

Story by Mod Zee.