"GAME OVER!!!" 

	The words flashed across the screen as two young men hunched over the old Mortal Kombat machine moaned-James, the slightly younger of the two, had almost yet again beaten the four armed Goro only to die in the final moments. Their exaggerated cries of defeat momentarily stood out amongst the several other noisy flashing arcade games within the darkened room they had spent the better part of the last hour and a half inside. 

	“Every. Freakin. Time!” Max hollered, making doubly sure to draw out each word as he practically clung to the player 2 controls for dear life. The fact that he himself hadn't been playing didn't seem to matter. In truth the defeat had mainly been so devastating because it had been the last quarter between the two.

	His attitude seemed to change just as fast as the arcades often took his money. Slapping his buddy James on the back in a friendly manner he quickly added “Welp...I'm sure you'll get him next time.” Absent mindidly he checked the cheap hand me down watch he wore on his wrist, using the dim flashing arcade lights he could just make out the time was about 8 o clock. 

	Looking up from the watch he was briefly much more grim looking than he had been following the loss of the arcade fight. Just as fast though his signature toothy grin played across his face, those that knew him though could recognize it as forced. “Looks like its time to get goin anyways...we don't wana be late for the haunted house”

–

	“So you think any of em will even show up?” Scotty Masterson, known as the local town screw up to most adults and 'the dealer' to most of his peers , asked the few others gathered around the outside of what was locally known as a haunted house. Years back the place had been seemingly abandoned overnight only to quickly fall into disrepair and just all around general creepiness, these days it was mostly used as a sort of [i]'right of passage'[/i] for the soon to be freshman. Scotty, a senior at Craft High, was gleefully looking forward to his final [i]Fright Night[/i] and had been bragging how [i]“This would really be one to remember.”[/i] 

	Right now Scotty was about as high as his hair was long-wich was to say extremely. Most people his age were dressing in the new wave of 80's fashion whereas Scotty looked like he had been straight out of the 60's: a large part of which was likely due to his hippy parents.

	Popping the top off his third Paps he quickly took a drink-it didn't matter that he felt kinda queezy already, he had a reputation to up hold. If the beer itself wasn't so cheap and warm he wouldn't even be having this problem. He couldn't help but turn his attention to the large victorian esque modeled house that seemed to ominously loom over the small group that had gathered under the last streetlight before the end of the road. Suddenly something caught his eye; looking over the rounded glasses that hung precariously close to the edge of his nose he could have swore he'd seen something momentarily in one of the dirty windows on the vacant monster before him. Quickly he shook the thought from his head as in his distance he saw two of the neighborhood boys approaching on their bikes, the sparse street lamps lighting their way to the dead end that was the haunted house. 

	With a smirk Scotty reached into the open window of his beat up blue truck parked against the curb, quickly returning with your atypical dollar store non descript monster mask and a plastic knife. Bowing to his friends he said “I will see you all in a bit-don't forget to tug hard on that fishing wire I rigged to the door when they walk in. Totally gonna freak em out when it slams shut-then I come in!” he slashed wildly at the air with the fake knife. Without wasting any more time he ran off into the direction of the back of the house, quickly disappearing into the darkness.