Bees Ch1

This was so not Basil's idea of a good time. The crowd of students that had followed their leader obviously disagreed, as did his competitor but Basil hated this. He'd never been big on large crowds, particularly when drinking was involved but right now his scholarship was riding on it. The faculty wanted to see him being a part of the campus in a non-academic way and this had seemed like the easiest option at the time. Of course it wasn't easy, this was only one of many tests to wean the number of applicants down before filling the one opening they had. If he didn't get this he'd be stuck volunteering for student relations or something and doing tours for potential students would take up way too much of his study time. He just wanted to graduate without losing his scholarship, student loans were already starting to pile up.

Basil didn't actually look out of place in the group of college students that had gathered just outside the old house. His brown hair was kind of a mess but it looked intentional rather than like he'd just not bothered with it that morning, which was the case. The bags under his hazel eyes were mirror on more than one face, energy drinks and coffee fuelled more of them than sleep did, even this early in September. Most professors stopped easing students into things after the first year. Basil already had a project he should have been doing instead of this but he was sacrificing that time for the sake of his scholarship. Even his clothing looked like it fit in, a t shirt with bold graphic and a pair of jeans that were a size too big.

Basil's competitor however, didn't really look like he belonged here, his attitude aside. Basil didn't know his name. His glasses had a thin metal rim, seated securely over serious green eyes. His hair was darker than Basil's, shorter too, in a style that looked like it could be just as forgotten while still looking intentional. He wasn't dressed as sensibly as everyone else in a turtleneck that he had to roll up to let his dark skin breath in the seasonably warm air. He had to be crazy to be wearing something as thick as that with the temperature today. Even with the sun gone it was still too hot for Basil's hoodie, he'd left that behind so he wouldn't have to deal with it. Despite the competitor's serious looking outfit, his smile was goofy as he joked around with a few of the girls in the crowd while they waited for their instructions.

God Basil couldn't wait to get all of this shit over with so that he could go back to his hermit lifestyle, accompanied by his books and not this shrill soundtrack of screams and laughter.

“Alright hopefuls, here's the dare.” The leader of the bunch climbed up onto the hood of a car as he started to speak, mostly for the drama of it. Basil and his competitor moved to stand in the little half circle that cleared away around the speaker, surrounding them as an eager audience. This was all far more theatrical than Basil thought necessary but he needed to keep that opinion to himself. He wasn't going to risk being disqualified. The whole series of tests had been set up like some intense version of truth or dare, any complaining was seen as chickening out.

“This is the house that never was.” The leader waved his arm to indicate the house behind the crowd. The students that had gathered around let out hushed whispers and murmurs, recounting the tales they'd heard from upperclassmen, the campus' unique urban legend. “Rumours older than any of us say that it appeared out of nowhere one day. What was once an empty lot became home to a strange young man no one had seem arrive. He kept to himself mostly and the town decided that maybe they'd just not seen the building go up, it was so far out on the edge of town, maybe it had just been done so fast they'd not realized it was there until it was.”

“They came to accept the house and its owner although members of the town still found themselves uncomfortable when they got too close to the house. That feeling only got worse when one day, the man who lived here just disappeared. Never showed up in town again. When the local police came to check in on him, they found his house empty. Empty of all life that is. The guy never showed up again, no body, not a trace of him. But his house was left fully furnished, everything was still there. If he moved away as suddenly as he arrived, he didn't take anything with him.”

“Now here's where the story gets really weird. Apparently the police found... strange things inside the house. Weird pieces of technology that didn't seem quite right. Books in a language no one has ever seen before. Even the local teens know to stay away from this place because on full moons there's a howling and a screaming that can be heard coming from deep within the house. Your task boys, should you choose not to pussy out and accept it, is to go into the house and bring back one of those weird bits of technology. Whoever brings the coolest item wins a spot amongst our ranks. Your peers will be your judge. Will you accept?”

“Yes.” Ghost stories and legends didn't bother Basil. His dorm from last year had been supposedly haunted and he'd never experienced a thing. Tales like this one were just created to scare people away from places they weren't welcome.

“Hell yes.” The other party in this dare was far more excited about the whole thing, pumping his fist in the air to get the crowd cheering for him. That could really work in his favour if they couldn't really find anything of real interest in there. Basil needed to be sure he came back with the best thing, speed would really be of the essence once he got in the house. He needed this way more than the other guy did.

“Then on the count of three, you're off. Be back inside of an hour or you are automatically eliminated from this round.” The crowd of students parted, clearing a path for the two young men so they were obstacle free until they got to the house itself. “One. Two. THREE!”

Basil nearly wiped out then and there with how much force he tried to put into his initial take off. His feet weren't used to this kind of running, he wasn't really big on any kind of running but sprinting in particular was difficult for him. His feet wanted to twist up and tangle themselves together before they got used to the unfamiliar action. The faltering had given his opponent a heads start, not that he would have really needed it. Even from here, with his eyes glued to the door of the house, Basil could see that the other guy could really run. This was going to be a serious push. He was going to need to be smart about where he went to search once he got into the place.

The door slowed the guy down enough that Basil almost caught up to him. Lucky enough for the slower runner, his opponent didn't seem to have thought about slowing him down even further, he left the front door wide open. It hadn't even been locked, Basil could tell that much when he actually passed the threshold and needed to slow himself down. There were no splinters to indicate the door being broken open and there was no key in the lock. He wondered briefly if someone had gotten here just a little before the main group had, to unlock the door for them. It kind of added to the atmosphere and the idea that someone had just up and walked away one day, never looking back. Not that the house really needed any help creating atmosphere.

It looked like any old farmhouse might have, aside from the thick layer of dust that coated everything and muted any natural colours there might have been. A trail of footprints led away from the door, obviously left behind by the other man in this race but that was it. There were no other signs of disturbance in the dust, not even from others who might have been put through the same dare in the past. With only the light from his cellphone to banish darkness the place looked almost sinister, though that was a series of thoughts he wanted to stay away from. Still, Basil couldn't help it, he shivered once before he stepped further into the house, clutching his phone in one hand, bag strap in the other. Going upstairs could be dangerous, the floor creaked with every step both men took but there had to be something interesting waiting in the master bedroom, didn't there?

Basil has only just managed to leave the kitchen when the door slammed shut behind him, making both his heart and his feet leap from the sound.

It was probably the wind, or someone from the group waiting outside. The latter was more likely, it had been a fairly still night so far and it would suit the groups theatrics quite nicely to slam it like that. After all, they'd insisted on waiting for the sun to go down before coming out here to add to the mood of it all. Either way Basil didn't have time to dwell on it, he needed to get moving if he wanted to stand a chance in hell of winning this thing. Lucky for him the stairs up weren't all that hard to find, a straight line from the kitchen to the back door. Even luckier they didn't bow too much under his weight, instead they just creaked a little to protest the sudden use of them.

Basil was halfway up the stairs when something occurred to him, raising the hair on his arm all while he told himself it was nothing, that it didn't matter.

The place had supposedly been abandoned for years, decades now at least and while the thick layer of dust that was settled over everything confirmed that rumour, everything else was too perfect. The carpet was still plush and full, so much so that he could feel it even through the soles of his shoes. The railing was still sturdy and strong against his palm. The wallpaper looked as though maybe a corner or two might be peeling off but nothing like what it should look like. This whole place should have been rotting, falling to pieces all around the pair of men inside. Instead it was all preserved.

Basil swallowed hard, trying to chase away the twisting that was settling into his stomach. They had an hour to find something and be out of here but he really didn't want to take all sixty minutes. He just wanted to grab the first thing he could find and be out of here as quickly as possible. The notion that this was the easier choice was lost now, at least while he was confined within the house. Surely once he was free of it he would feel silly for the panic that was growing the longer he took. The wind picking up to start howling outside like some untamed beast wasn't helping either.

The master bedroom was easy enough to find, settled to the left of the stairs once he reached the top. The bed was still made, cover smooth and wrinkle free under all of the dust, pillows matching in fabric and undisturbed surface. Everything out on the dresser looked completely average. A brush, a hand mirror, an old fashioned razor. There was nothing out of the ordinary here, beyond the lack of decay. Nothing in the open unfortunately meant taking more time than Basil wanted to, digging through drawers and closets. Either he'd miscalculated where things would hide or there was really nothing of interest. Not even a journal or diary.

None of the other rooms upstairs yielded anything in what was the fastest, thorough search Basil could manage. Sure he was probably missing things in his speed but he wanted to get back downstairs, he'd not heard his competitor in a long while now. A part of him feared this all had been one elaborate prank to lock him in this house and leave him there. Hazing new members could often cross the line into bullying or they could just find it funny. Hell knew that Basil had faced enough of that sort of thing his first year at college. The student dropped his mission to find something to present and change it to just looking for the other guy.

He was halfway down to the main floor when he at least got proof he wasn’t alone here. From the belly of the house, the other man screamed.