It was his first year of college and so far, it had been much kinder to Jon than high school.
Both he and Karyn had enrolled at the university in the town of Gape, which was the nearest institute to their home town. It seemed like the right choice, as they both wanted to stay near home and near each other. A few other high school acquaintances had made the same decision, although the new social landscape and the obliteration of the old had mellowed previous rivalries and forged some new friendships.
Jon and Karyn however, were the same as they ever had been. Despite what everyone expected, their intimate friendship never became something more intimate, scuppered by missed chances, bad timing, other people and too much time spent in the 'Friend Zone', or a combination of the above.
Gape was an exciting place to live in, a place with a much deeper and stranger history than Jon's home town. Gape had its fair share of ghost stories and urban legends, which tonight Jon was taking full advantage of. Tonight was Halloween and tonight, Jon had invited Karyn and a few others to explore the town's very own supposedly haunted house, the dilapidated Gape House.
Gape House sat where it had been abandoned over seventy years previously on the edge of Gape's oldest district, Red Row. It was already dark when Jon's people-carrier pulled up inside the gates of the overgrown, run-down estate. Karyn was the first to leave the car.
"Okay, I take it back," she announced, "this place [i]is[/i] creepy. At night, anyway."
"Wait until you see the inside," Jon smiled as he joined her.
"Have you already been inside?" asked Karyn.
"Nope, never," Jon grinned. "But if you believe the stories "
"I don't want to think about that," Karyn shook her head. "If you start talking again about horrible accidents, murders, sudden bouts of madness and mysterious disappearances, you'll never get me to go inside."
"Fair enough," Jon laughed, then turned back to the others, "Would you care to join us ?"
