Another story for our fanfic competition. Here you can find all the stories for the 12th Precinct Castle Halloween FanFic Competition. And here you can find the rules.
You can also find the stories at www.fanfiction.net for a possible easier read.
Story: The House That Haunted Us
Rating: Unknown
Word count: 2498
“Come on, Carl!” Billy
called from the dinning room door. “You’re missing all the fun!”
Carl nodded and waved
his friend off. “We’re coming!” He yelled, turning to his girlfriend, who was
giving him a terrified look. “Come on, Becca! This is supposed to be fun!”
The girl snorted and
crossed her arms. “Well, it’s not, ok? I’m tired of this. I wanna go home.”
“Hey, I told you you
weren’t going to like this and you insisted on coming. At least try not ruin it
for me, will you?”
Becca glared at him
and turned around. “Well, excuse me if being hunted by creepers in an old
haunted house is not my idea of a fun night.”
Carl ran a hand
through his hair and sighed. “It’s all fake, babe. They’re actors, like in the
movies.” He tried to reassure his girlfriend.
The girl shook her
head. “I know, but it’s still scary.”
Carl smirked. “That’s
what I’m here for.” He said, putting his arms around her waist. “To protect
you.”
The girl smiled and
leaned her head on her boyfriend’s shoulder, putting a kiss on his neck. “Ok.”
Nothing made them
suspect, that in just mere minutes, a decapitated man in a coffin was going to
ruin their ‘fun’.
Castle kept bouncing on his feet as they approached the
crime scene. They had gotten the call half an hour ago, and since she had told
him about it, the writer had been acting like a kid on Christmas morning.
The crime scene was a haunted house, a fake one, of course.
Halloween was in a few days and as it happened every year, everything scary was
a big hit all around the country.
A couple of years ago, a group of young men just out of
college, had decided to get their own piece of the cake by creating the ‘Real
Haunted House Experience’, and Castle was…
Well, ‘excited’ didn’t even start to cover it.
They arrived at the house, an old Victorian building that
was more than perfect for the ‘haunted house’ charade. The place gave Kate the
chills just by looking at it.
“Oh, my god! This place is awesome!” Castle shrieked, as
soon as they put a foot inside the house.
Everything was set as if it were a real abandoned house. The
antique furniture was dusty, there were spider webs hanging of the ceiling and
some of the stuff was covered with dirty, white sheets. It was creepy.
Horror-movie creepy.
Castle kept commenting on everything he spotted around him.
“Look at these old paintings.” He said, touching one of the frames and then
cleaning his finger in his pants. “They’re horrible!”
“Ok, Castle, I know you’re excited, but we’re here to
investigate a murder. Try to be a
little less… cheerful, ok?” Kate scolded as she turned around, trying to hide a
smirk. She really loved that dorky side of his.
They walked into the big living room, the printed wallpaper
making Kate’s eyes hurt at the horrible pattern. ‘Horror house or not, who
would want to put that atrocity on their walls? ‘ She thought. The room was
enormous. Three big windows surrounded the place with heavy, blue velvet
curtains. Most of the furniture was covered with sheets and the big chimney was
still lit, the sound and the light of the fire giving the living room an even
more phantasmagoric look.
Uniforms and CSU agents were all around the room, searching
for any kind of clue and documenting every single thing they thought out of
place; which had to be a very hard task, since everything should be out of
place in a haunted house, right?
They approached Ryan and Esposito, who were standing in the
middle of the room before an open casket, observing while Lanie examined the
body.
“A body in a coffin…” Castle started. “I thought we put them
there after Lanie cut them open, not before.”
The ME turned around, giving Castle a glare, her left
eyebrow arching dangerously. “Aren’t you funny, Writer Boy…” She replied.
Kate chuckled, giving her partner and amused look as she
walked closer to the wooden box, peeking over it. “Garlic?” She asked
incredulously.
Lanie nodded, handing the detective one of the hundreds of
garlic heads that were on the coffin. “Yup; tons of them.”
“According to the witnesses they were covering the body.”
Ryan chimed in. “Do you think this could be any kind of ritual?”
“Hm. I don’t know.” Kate mumbled, rounding the casket as she
took a look at the body. “The head was completely cut off…” She observed.
“Apart from the garlic, is there anything that could suggest a ritual murder?”
Lanie shook her head. “No. Not that I can see right now.
Sometimes there are marks on the body, herbs or specific kinds of food on the
stomach… You’ll have to wait until I perform the autopsy.”
“Ok. Thanks, Lanie.” The detective said, stepping aside the
coffin and signaling the boys and Castle to follow her.
“Have you talked to all the witnesses yet?” Beckett asked
the boys.
Esposito winced and pointed upstairs with his head. “No,
just two of them. They’re upstairs trying to calm the girls down. They’re
practically kids.”
“Fine.” Kate wrote something on her pad and pointed to both
the boys with her pen. “You two go upstair-“
“Hmm hmm. “ Castle hawked.
Beckett sighed and turned to her partner, one of her bests
‘looks’ on. “What, Castle?”
He just stood there, looking at her, pouting and giving her
the most devastating puppy dog eyes she had ever seen.
“Ugh. Ok!” The detective growled. She turned to Ryan and
Esposito again, trying to ignore the boys’ knowing look. No one talked about
it, but they all knew that Castle and Beckett’s little secret wasn’t such a
thing anymore. “We will go upstairs
to interview the witnesses, and you guys can go back to the precinct and try to
contact the owners of the house. Maybe any of them knows who our headless man
is.”
When Castle and Beckett entered the room, the two girls were
still crying. Four boys, around 20 years old were surrounding them, trying to
comfort them.
“Come on, Becca. It’s ok. It’s gonna be ok, baby.” A blond
young man, mumbled in the ear of a brunette girl who was grabbing his shirt for
dear life.
“I told you we should have left!” She sobbed. “We could have
died!”
Beckett walked inside the room, clearing her throat to
attract the kids’ attention. “Hi. I’m detective Kate Beckett and this is my
partner, Rick Castle. We need to ask you some questions about what happened
here tonight.”
The boys nodded, stepping aside to let her get closer to
them. “Can you please tell me what happened? How did you find the body?”
A tall, dark haired boy talked. “We were following the
instructions. They give you an itinerary. You have to follow the rules and do
what they tell you so you don’t miss any of the ‘acts’.”
“Acts?” Castle asked.
Another boy nodded. “Yes. They have like a show, you know?
Things happen all around the house, but it’s not funny if you’re not there to
see them, right?”
The writer frowned. “Right.”
“So you have to follow the itinerary. First you have to
leave the suitcase in your room, then you have to meet with the others at the
corridor and then you go downstairs and enter the living room. Things happen
when you do that. Like noises in the room, the drawers open by themselves, the
frames on the walls move… That kind of stuff.”
“Uh huh.” Beckett assented. “So you went into the living
room and…?”
Carl sniffled and went on with the story. “We got in there
and the sheet said that we had to open the coffin, so we did.” The boy stopped
and took a deep breath, sneaking his arm around his girlfriend’s shoulders.
“There were like a million garlic heads in there and we thought it was funny.”
A strangled laugh sounded behind Castle.
“Ok, go on.” Beckett encouraged. “What happened then?”
Carl swallowed and licked his lips. “We… Billy started
throwing the garlic to us. We were playing. It was fun. Then, one of the heads
hit Becca in the face.” Carl stopped and looked back at the girl. “There was
blood in it.”
“And then you stopped throwing the garlic?” Beckett asked.
Billy coughed and scratched his head. “Um, no. I thought it
was fake blood. You know, like cranberry syrup or something like that. I didn’t
realized it was real until I touched the guy’s hair.”
Castle tilted his head to one side, narrowing his eyes in
wonder. “How did you know the head wasn’t fake?” He asked intrigued. “It could
have been part of the atrezzo.”
The boy shook his head effusively. “No, man. No way those
eyes could be fake. The moment I saw it I knew it was real.”
Beckett took a pause from writing on her pad and took a look
at the six kids. “So I guess that’s when you called 911, right?”
“Yes.” Carl agreed.
“Can we go now?”
Beckett turned to look at the girl snuggled against Carl’s
side, her eyes red rimmed and her hair tousled. “Sure. We’ll call you if we
need to ask you anything else. Thanks for your collaboration.” She blurted, stepping aside, so that the two
girls and Carl could get up from the bed they were sitting on and get out of
the room.
When they were alone, Beckett looked at Castle who was still
lost in thought. “What? You think any of them did it?” She asked.
“No. Not really. They were all too shaken.” He replied. “But, I seriously think that we need to
take a look at the place, see if the CSU missed anything.”
Beckett smiled, walking closer to him and pocking him with a
finger. “You just want to snoop around the haunted house, Castle.”
“Yes. So what? I’m just trying to do a thorough
investigative work, detective.” He said, circling her waist with his arms and
bringing her closer to him. “But since you’re so reluctant, I’ve decided to
start my exploration somewhere else.”
Castle leaned in and caught her mouth with his; nipping on
her lower lip until she moaned his name.
“Castle…” Kate sighed. “We shouldn’t do this. Hands to
ourselves when we’re working, remember?”
Castle chuckled and moved his burning lips to her neck,
running his tongue along the length of it. “We’ve tried that, Kate. Never
works.” He mumbled, making her skin stand up in goosebumps. “We need another
course of action.”
“Uh huh.”
The detective felt her knees start to fail her and hooked
her arms around her boyfriend’s neck, letting out a gasp when he took it as an
encouragement and bit down hard on her jugular.
“Aaahhh. Castle! If I find a mark in there later, you’re a
dead man!” She threatened.
He laughed. “No marks.” He whispered against her ear. “I
know you a little, you know?”
Castle was waiting for her reply, but it never came. When he
removed his lips from her neck to look at her, the look in her eyes was
anything but amused, or even aroused.
“Kate?” He called. “What is it? Are you ok?”
“I… um… th-that painting. It winked!” She gasped. “H-How did
it wink?”
Castle turned around to check on the painting. It was an old
man sitting on a bench with a bouquet of flowers in his hand. His eyes were
both open and he was smiling.
“Kate… This is a haunted house. It was probably one of the
tricks they use for the guests.” He tried to reassure her. There was no way it
could be anything else.
Kate nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, it has to be that.” She laughed
nervously. “It just caught me by surprise. I wasn’t expecting that.”
“Of course.” The writer replied, letting a mild mocking tone
in. “That’s why you practically stopped breathing.”
Kate glared at him, her eyes practically burning his skin.
“You better stop that if you want to continue what you started here later.” She
warned.
“Later?”
Suddenly, all the doors in the corridor started slamming
closed one by one, startling the couple, who were still tangled in each other’s
arms, looking at the corridor incredulously.
Kate let go of Castle’s neck and straightened her blouse
with unsteady hands. “Ok, this is officially freaking me out.
“Yeah. Me too. Let’s get out of here.”
That was easy to say, but when they tried to open the door
that led to the stairs, it didn’t work.
“Castle, it doesn’t open…” Kate said through gritted teeth
as she tried to turn the doorknob over and over again.
The writer swallowed hard and rubbed his eyes, trying to
clear his mind. “What do you mean, ‘it doesn’t open’?”
“That it’s opening easily, Castle. What the hell would I
mean?” Kate snapped.
“Ok. Ok. Let’s
calm down. We’re both getting nervous.” Castle said. “There are people down
there who know we’re here.”
“Yeah, the-…”
The lights went off.
They were locked in the dark, in the second floor of a
‘haunted’ house. Could it get any worse?
Apparently, yes.
Steps. They heard steps coming towards them, and they were
not regular steps. These were heavy and slow, as if someone were dragging their
feet along the floor.
“Hello?” Kate called. “We’re locked in here! Can you help
us?”
“Grrrrraaaahhhhuuummmlllll”
Castle grabbed Kate’s hand and pulled her to him. “What the
hell was that?” He hissed.
The guttural noise came out again, a little closer this
time.
“I don’t know, but we better get outta here!” She whispered.
“Open up, you stupid door!”
They both struggled with the wooden piece until they heard a
crack and the door popped open.
The two partners ran downstairs as fast as they could,
making the CSU team and all the uniforms in the living room look at them in
confusion. Before they could start explaining their behavior, they heard
someone coming down the stairs. Kate practically jumped the three steps left
and walked backwards until her body hit the wall. Castle followed.
Their faces went white when Ryan and Esposito came down the
stairs, laughing so hard they couldn’t breathe.
“Oh, my God!” Ryan said between shallow breaths. “That was
the funniest thing ever!”
“You bet, bro!” Espo replied. “You should see your faces.”
The latin detective, passed by them and handed Castle an
ipad with a ‘remote’ app open.
“This house is better than a video game, man.”
With that, the two detectives left the house, still laughing
at their partners.
Kate gritted her teeth and plucked the ipad from Castle’s
hands. “You better start thinking of a good alibi, ‘cause I’m gonna kill those
two.”
Castle nodded and added, “And I’ll help.”
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