Haunted House Roleplay!

Harold looked at Arnold blankly, then shoved his hands deep into his pockets. Sheepishly, he pulled the original flashlight out. "Oh. ...Uh, sorry," he mumbled. "Do we have to split up into pairs? I mean, should we even split up? Isn't that how the bad guys usually get people in those movies my mom says I'm not allowed to watch anymore..." he cut himself off. "Not cause I get scared," he added hastily.

Arnold starred at Harold. Lately Arnold was starting to slightly loose his patience when it came to his classmates. He was getting tired of being the one having to fix everyone's problems. Especially after recently getting stuck in a tree, bound and gagged in his own basement, and accused of being a vampire. It was a little exhausting.

Sucking it up, he smiled at Harold. "There aren't any bad guys, Harold," he said, trying to sound reassuring and kind. "If we split up we can explore this place faster and figure out where the best place to camp out is."

A tick twitched across Helga's face at the realization that this was her chance at being with Arnold, Helga spoke up in a drill sergeant-like voice and said, "Well, ssince I'm CLEARLY the only one SMART enough to make such a decision, I'll partner you all up mySELF."

Helga spun around the room as if to see everyone around her and then said in an authoritative voice, "Let's do you two-" she ordered while pointing towards Gino and Wolfgang "-because pip squeak there needs some help in the BIG department and I think Wolfgang is big enough for the BOTH of you."

Ignoring their less than enthused expressions, Helga moved on to Sid who had practically glued himself to Harold. "Yeah, yeah. You two dweebs can be partners. Wouldn't wanna separate fat boy and whiny over here."

Helga smirked before taking a gulp and turning to look at Arnold. "Guess that leaves you with me, Footballhead. You'll probably need me seeing as YOU won't be doing any of the tough-guy stuff, I'm sure." She pursed her lips and frowned to herself; a slight shake of her head washing over the embarrassment filling her veins.

With one more shake of her head, she cleared her throat and said"And since Arnoldo over here only brought enough flashlights for HALF of us," she rolled her eyes for affect and then swatted her hand in Arnold's general vicinit, "Why don't you do something RIGHT and hand out the remaining flashlights to each group so we can get this show on the road already."

"Sure, Helga," Arnold replied with an exasperated sigh. "I would have never thought to do that myself ." Quickly he handed a flashlight to Wolfgang, and grabbed one for himself, switching it on.

Turning, he shined his flashlight up the large staircase. "I'm going up there," he stated, almost hoping Helga wouldn't follow him. But his concience got the best of him and he called back to her, "you coming, Helga?"

The twitch of a smile tugged on Helga's lips and she forced the swoon away to say with a scowl, "Yeah, yeah, Footballhead I'm coming. Who ELSE is gonna protect you and that giant head from getting in to trouble."

With a smirk towards the remainders of the group who appeared to be trying to decide where they wanted to go, Helga followed up the stairs after Arnold while adding just under her breath, "Just consider me the new Geraldo or something."

"What was that, Helga?" Arnold asked after he heard Helga mumble something under her breath. He assumed it was an insult directed at him. In fact, here should have just let it be... Did be really want to hear her insult him more then necessary?

Quickly turning to face forward once more, he smacked his face right into a large, carved column at the top of the stairs.

"Oh my god! Arnold! Are you okay?" Helga exclaimed as she rushed to Arnold's side from where he's fallen. Her hands instinctively held his head for a moment as she stared deeply into his eyes. After a beat, she dropped his head hard on the floor and then stood up while stuttering,

"I-I mean, I mean.... CRIMINY, Arnold! You're the one with the flashlight! You're supposed to see where we're going, DOI!"

Wolfgang shook his head, irritated before turning towards Gino. Great, not like he really wanted to be stuck with any of the others, but Gino was a different sort of problem. He wasn't afraid of the kid exactly, but he also wasn't a complete idiot. Gino was money and power and quiet whisperings behind closed doors. Gino was dangerous. He was also the only one, aside from Wolfgang himself, that he could see possibly winning this bet. What could possibly scare the son of a mob king?

Rather than dwell on it any longer, Wolfgang lifted himself to his feet and brushed the dust off his shorts.

"The fire should burn for a half hour before really needing someone to tend to it again. Guess it's a good enough time to do some exploring." He fingered the flashlight Arnold had handed him before storming off. "Shouldn't go too far though. I don't expect any of those fourth graders to check back on the fire." He jerked a finger in Sid and Harold's direction. "You - big nose kid - go check out that dog sound you heard or whatever. Last thing we need is some crazy feral mutt running amok."

Finally he turned to Gino. With a slight nod of cautious respect he gestured to a door on their right.

"Shall we?"

Harold sighed his resignation towards going after the dogs, hoping no one could hear him gulp. He could have sworn it was echoing. He motioned for Sid to follow him, and began sweeping the flashlight back and forth, trying to keep a steady hand. At first he thought the sounds were part of Sid's imagination, but he was starting to hear barking in the distance as well. He tried to assure himself that it was just Sid's nervousness rubbing off on him, but he was starting to feel less sure.

"Hey, Sid...uh...do you really think ghost dogs exist?"

Wolfgang was off to a good start with Gino and if he was smart, he'd stay in the little mobster's good graces for the night. The bigger boy seemed to one of the few kids in the group that had his wits together and might actually prove to be useful.

With a nod of acknowledgement, Gino took the lead and jiggled the knob at first lightly and then as it refused to yield, Gino gave a more forceful push, without any results.

Turning to Wolfgang, Gino popped the lollipop out of his mouth and pointed to the door. "So Wolfgang right? Can you help a fella out and bust this door open for me?"

Sid nodded in agreement, he was quite nervous about what would happen as he and Harold started to walk through the hallway. He really hoped that they were imagining things and that it's just something else, but the barking kept on going, so he thought that perhaps this was real. He took several deep breaths as he and Harold were walking through the halls before stumbling across the living room.

Sid was quite scared about going in there with no lights on. He was started to get nervous that if the ghost dogs are real, they might actually be in here, he took at least 5 deep breaths to calm himself down before asking Harold about the flashlight. "Harold.... uh... is it fine if we uh... use the flashlight in here?"

"Yeah," Harold swept the flashlight across the room. He sneezed multiple times in reaction to the build up of dust over the years. He let out a high pitched scream when a spider dropped down from the ceiling and onto his shirt. He shook it off desperately, the flashlight waving and creating crazy patterns as he swatted at the arachnid. He breathed a sigh of relief when the spider dropped off of him and scurried away.

"So ah...you go ahead in there and look. I'll stand guard."

Meanwhile...

Arnold was sitting on the floor rubbing his throbbing head and glaring up at Helga who was kneeling next to him.  "I could have done without the extra head injury," he sneered.

Dusting himself of be stood up and handed Helga the flashlight. "Since you're so much smarter than me and headache free why don't you lead?" he said with a bit of a sarcastic edge to his face.

Ever since the April Fool's day dance Arnold was much more of a force to be reckoned with when it came to Helga.  He would still regularly ignore her or let her jokes roll off his back but sometimes be didn't mind dishing it out mildy in return instead.... Tonight looked like it might be a night for the latter. Especially if it was going to be just the two of them for a while.

Wolfgang managed to suppress his laughter at the sight of tiny Gino even attempting to use force. The kid looked like he barely weighed 90 lbs. It wouldn't really be good for Gino to think Wolfgang was slighting him in any way though, so Wolfgang struggled to keep his face neutral.

When Gino spoke up asking for assistance, Wolfgang didn't hesitate for long. Being relegated to the role of "muscle" was hardly a surprise, though he could feel his skin crawl with irritation at the thought of taking orders from anyone.

With a grunt of exertion, he rammed his shoulder hard against the door, causing it to stutter open.

"After you," Wolfgang said, gesturing towards the darkness beyond. This was going to be a dangerous game, feigning obedience while actively trying to sabotage Gino. Wolfgang felt a shiver of fear and excitement run across his back.

Helga rolled her eyes and snatched the flashlight from Arnold's hand. "You got THAT right, bucko. I probably SHOULD lead seeing as your freakish head will only keep running INto things in this ancient house."

A scream sounded from below and Helga jumped despite knowing immediately who the source was. "Sounds like Harold may be the first one to run away crying for his mommy." She smirked at the thought of watching him run out crying with his arms up in the air- his usual act whenever he chickened out of something.

Without looking behind her, because she couldn't be THAT obvious in wanting to know how close Arnold was to her, Helga kept her eyes open for any funny business as she said to Arnold in a bored voice, "So what was the dealio with coming here ANYway? This dump isn't scary let alone haunted." She stopped in her tracks for a moment as her eyes singled in on a seemingly-hidden hallway that was darker than the bottom of any well..

With her eyes still fixated on the hallway, she said with a slight chuckle, "Whattya say, Footballhead? Care to do the honors?" She turned slowly to look back at Arnold and outstretched her arm towards the dark abyss; inviting him to lead the way in to mysterious hallway.

"HAROLD!!" Sid yelled. Sid ran toward where he was standing guard and found a hole in the floor.

He shined his flashlight on the floor and found Harold lying below, he yelled "ARE YOU OKAY HAROLD?" He looked around the hallway and behind him to see if anybody was nearby, and of course there was nobody around.

He put the flashlight in his pocket and took some deep breaths before thinking about jumping from the top floor to the bottom floor. "Should I come in or should I stay?" Sid whispered to himself at least 3 times.

He eventually decided to jump from where he was and onto the floor below and yelled "GERONIMOAAAAAAHHH!!!" before landing onto the floor..

With a nod of thanks, Gino stepped into the room. Once he crossed the doorway, he pulled out a miniature silver flashlight from the breast pocket of his suit, flicking it on with a soft click. The beam of light was weak but it was enough to cast the room in a soft glow, revealing a parlor room.

On top of the maroon plush carpet were billiard tables, furnished wooden chairs with paisley printed fabric and their matching tables, and a bar with a mahogany counter, still stocked with drinks. Art hung along the floral walls, most in good shape.

Gino wasn't a boy easily impressed but this room did the trick. "Looks like the owner of this place got some taste after all. Let's check it out."

Arnold narrowed his eyes at Helga.  "Oh, so you only want to lead the way as long as it's not into a pitch-black hallway, huh?" Arnold said, fairly snatching the flashlight from her.

He took a step into the dark hallway, even the brightness of the flashlight didn't help illuminate the long dark stretch.  Plain, wallpapered walls shot up from the floor, so staunchly straight that it made the hallway seem even narrower then it was.  Stepping forward he noticed a gallery of family photos on the wall.  He paused and gazed at each picture, imaging the story behind each one--their fascinating turn-of-the-century clothing, striking and stiff; their expressions stern and serious, but a twinkle in their eyes--evidence that the long exposure time of days gone by the only reason they weren't smiling.

Turning back towards the hallway's beginning he noticed Helga was still standing there watching him. Shooting a challenging look back at Helga, he said, "come on, Helga.  What are you waiting for?"

Wolfgang paused for a second at the sound of screaming coming from somewhere in the distance. He was pretty sure it was either the fat kid or the one with the big nose, which was hardly a surprise. They were what? Maybe fifteen minutes into this dare and those two kids were already on the verge of mental breakdowns? Winning this dare was almost too easy.

He smirked as he trailed behind Gino. He didn't exactly see what Gino liked about this room so much, but the pool table was pretty sweet. His old man had taught him the basics a few years back, during one of his more sober stretches.

"Nice," Wolfgang said, stepping forward to run a hand along the felt. "Even nicer that those other numbskulls are probably going to scare themselves out of this place before we're even done scoping out the house." He picked up a pool stick and weighed it in his hand, "Y'know, I'm sort of surprised you got involved with this racket. From what I've heard, you usually have bigger fish to fry."

He did his best to appear casually curious. His best bet in winning this thing involved having Gino as an ally. The two wimpy kids would probably freak themselves out, but the football head and loud chick would be a different story.

((OOC: JFGoofy be careful of taking too much control of what happens to Harold! Remember you can only control what happens to Sid!))

Harold muttered a few choice words under his breath, dusting himself off and forcing himself back to his feet. He glanced over to where Sid had landed, wondering what had possessed Sid to come after him. Harold certainly hadn't chosen to come down there. He was about to suggest they start looking for a way out when something in his peripheral vision caught his eye. It was white, whatever it was, and was glowing faintly like how the moon reflected sunlight at night.

He gulped as he realized it looked strangely like the back end of a dog. As the tail started wagging, though, and before he could say anything it disappeared. He shuddered. This was going against plan.

No one really expected Harold to have a plan, but he did. He knew he wouldn't last the whole night or be the one here the longest - especially not with Helga, Gino and Wolfgang all being there. No, Harold didn't have a chance in the world of being the last one standing. But in order to not be called a chicken, he did have a plan. He just couldn't be the first to chicken out. Steeling himself, he glanced over at Sid.

"So...uh...d-d-did you see that?"

Gino was peering at the art, running a finger along the frame to uncover the gold paint underneath the layers of grime.

"Winning the bet is nice and all but you're right. Thought a place like this got some valuables laying around and I wanted to check it out."

He turned around, a smug smile on his lips. "And looks like I was right. If you got some favorite pool ball or somethin' you better pocket it before we leave, 'cause there ain't gonna be nothin' left once my boys come here tomorrow and pick it clean."

Sid looked around the room only to see a bit of furniture and broken wooden planks from when Harold fell, and that was it. He was already quite nervous and was biting his lips. He backed off from Harold for a moment. He whispered to himself "Did Harold really see something? No this better be some joke or something"

He was pretty scared to go in the darkness alone and he didn't want to leave his friend all alone. He turned around, and walked back toward Harold, he breathed slowly.

"Isn't it a bit colder than it was in the last few minutes?"

He came up to Harold and crouched next to him as he felt the cold air around them. "Um.. uh... Harold, what uh... did you see?"

Ah, there it was. Wolfgang studied the painting behind Gino, knowing that the mobster was somehow seeing so much more than Wolfgang ever would. Gino's interest in this excursion finally made sense, though he couldn't say he cared much about it. Money was a nice motivator, but all he could see upon looking around this grime covered room was years of filth and a bunch of junk.

But Gino. Gino could look at it all, cut out the bullshit and make it about the dollar sign.

"Why wait?" Wolfgang said with a grin as he reached into his back pocket and pulled out his dad's old buck knife. He crossed the room to the painting. "I could help you start early. Although..." He fiddled with the knife in his hands. "The rest of the brats might get suspicious and I'm sure it'd really get the ol' Footballhead riled up if we start grabbing paintings and what not. S'too bad we have to wait for them to bail..." He let things linger, hoping Gino would take the bait.

With any luck, this evening might turn out to be more profitable than he'd expected.

Harold was going to have to play this right. It wouldn't do to spook himself too much in his effort to get Sid to be the first one out. He was freaked out and knew his hands were shaking but he was hoping that Sid was too scared to notice. That was really his only hope. In truth, Harold felt like a jerk for doing this but he really hated it when the others made fun of him and he justified it that Sid wasn't always the nicest to him, either.

"Dog," he finally said "...Ghost dog. What'd you call it? A greyhound? I mean, I could beat up some stupid dog but uh...you should go check it out. Uh..." he paused, trying to find the right words. He pointed to where he'd seen it. "You know, just to make sure I'm not seeing things or nothin'. It was probably just a shadow but ...we should make sure." He pushed Sid forward in the direction the apparent ghost dog had been.

"Yeah, yeah, Hair Boy I'm coming," she said with a roll of her eyes while following after Arnold.

Silently, they tiptoed down the hallway enough to reach an end- of sorts. The hallway took a sudden turn to the right and continued on in the darkness. But just before the hallway turns, 2 doors stared back and stared at Helga; begging to be opened.

"Well footballhead, you ready to be the next contestant on 'What's behind that door?' Now first- tell me, just what DO you think is behind that door?" Her tone had heightened as she did her best impression of the bubbly host of a game show like the ones Big Bob watches most every night.

After a beat, Helga frowned and dropped her arms limply to her sides. "Criminy," she exclaimed under her breath. "So much for being funny, ya dork," she mumbled to herself before clearing her throat and trying again.

"So. Arnold." Helga said with the hint of a smile toying at her lips though she tried with all her might to curl it into a snarl. "You gonna help pick which door or do I gotta do EVERYTHING for you?"