The Start of a Boo-tiful Haunting.
It was too fucking cliche. All of it. All of this was too cliche.
He had let Al of all people, goad him into a bet about staying in an abandoned house for a night.
The fucker didn't even live in Canada and was only up for a visit- how the hell did he know about a haunted house? What did he do, google it on the way over? Was this his plan from the very beginning?
Matt crossed his arms defensively as he looked at the old home around him. It wasn't so bad off, actually. It had just been abandoned a few months back- things were rusted, cobwebbed, and dusty to hell but it wasn't pre-plumming or electricity. Its not like some Victorian ghost would come after him... Hell, he even had a comfy couch to sleep on.
And as if there wasn't enough cliche to this little ditty, as soon as he had calmed himself down, there was a rattling a few rooms back.
He had the daylights scared out of him, and one hand flew up to clutch his chest, struggling for the breath he just lost. This was either going to go two ways. Either this was a really bad movie, or book, and he was going to be the first victim in a string of murders until a hero comes along and solves the case or...
Matt wasn't going to let Al put shit anymore than he had already done. After gaining some common sense back- and remembering that he wasn't in a movie or a show or a book, he surged ahead (but quietly), moving towards the sound that seemed to drift from the kitchen pantry.
He could imagine Al's shit eating grin now, probably rattling around in there with chains and whatever he could get his hands on to make this night as spooky as he could for the large Canadian until he left out of fear (or at least until Al got his kicks and got bored). Matt would yank him out and send him on his fucking way (Maybe with an asskicking.)
But that's not what happened at all.
Matt yanked open the door, and someone who was- pale, blond, and decidedly neither Al nor even alive stared back at him, holding the broom and mop he was trying to put back. Matt's hand was already shooting ahead of his brain to grab hold of fabric, but his hand phased thought the dusty looking red hoodie and Matt stumbled into the closet beside the... ghost?
"I'm sorry." It said in a sympathetic, yet eerie and echo-y voice. "I didn't know I had visitors, I... I was trying to clean up." Its eyes, large and violet, as well as as pale as the rest of it, peered up at him from behind rounded glasses that seemed almost too big for its face. "My name is Matthew."
There was a very long, very lengthy silence.
"Um... Mister, no... offense but you kind of have your hand though my shoulder and it doesn't hurt but it kind of tickles in a weird way."
Matt managed to pull his hand back, and open up his fist, staring dumbly into the nothing he held. He then looked back at the ghost almost blankly before dropping to the pantry floor like a sack of potatoes.
"Mister!" The ghost screeched in horror, but his added panic did nothing but add a broom and mop to the Matt pile on the hardwood.
