Chapter Text
“That’s it, then,” Terri said, “There’s only four of us left and we have no idea what to do. We might as well wait it out down here.”
“But when morning comes….won’t the house attack everyone it sees?” Squishy asked.
No one answered. They and anyone else who thought to hide down in the air pockets of the underwater tunnels would be safe for a while, but there was no telling what would happen to anyone else.
Terry hated this feeling of giving up. They didn’t give up during the scare games and he didn’t want to give up now. But he couldn’t think of anything. That house….that true monster seemed unstoppable. And come morning, that house would be on campus, in the heart of the cities residence-
Heart.
Terry gasped as an idea popped into his head. “Does anyone remember the plan they had in the movie?”
“The one with the mask on a vacuum?” Squishy asked, confused.
“No, the one at the end,” Terry said as he started to remember, “The guy at the arcade said that they had to strike the house at the heart. They realized that they couldn’t attack the house on the inside, so they were going to try and detonate the house from the outside. Through the chimney!”
“I don’t mean to sound negative,” Sulley said harshly, “But how are we going to get high enough to drop dynamite that we don’t have into a chimney belonging to a monster-eating house?”
“We can climb the scare school building. We aren’t that far away and on the way there, we could grab some scare canisters from door design.”
“We could use them as rockets, like how Mike and Sulley sent Hardscrabble canister all over the place,” Terri said as he began to understand his brother’s plan.
“Are you guys forgetting what we are up against?!” Sulley practically yelled, “Those kids in the movie probably didn’t beat that house and we can’t beat this one.”
“.....We’ve done the impossible before,” Squishy whispered, the others barely able to hear him, “And this is our faults. We owe it to everyone, especially the ones who were eaten, to at least try.”
Terry nodded and Terri did too. Everyone looked at Sulley, who was still looking at them like they were crazy.
But he nodded his head.
After making sure the house wasn’t by the river, they made a mad dash for can design. The doors were locked, but Sulley just rammed them down. The alarm sounded, but they quickly found a few canisters and got out of there.
Next, they ran to the scare school’s building. When Sulley tried to ram down its locked door, the only result he got was an injured shoulder. Its doors were bigger, thicker, and stronger. “Now what?”
The Perrys responded by grabbing one of the canisters and batting it through one of the long windows by the door. The alarms sounded but they kept going until there was enough room for them to get through.
They heard a familiar roar and turned to see the house running down the lawn towards them.
“Find a way to get up high!” Sulley said as he ran towards the house.
“What are you doing?” Squishy cried out, “Don’t tell me you are insane, too!”
“Look, you’ll need someone to lead it so that you can make the shot.” Sulley’s look softened. “This is MY fault and I don’t want to watch as another monster gets eaten.”
Terry nodded and he, Terri, and Squishy climbed through the window. He turned and watched as his friend charged towards the monster. Once the house had him in sight, Sulley changed directions and lead the house in a line parallel to them. Terry turned himself away from the sight, knowing that they didn’t have much time.
Inside was the scaring classroom. The walls ran way above them and ended at the high ceiling. Windows lined the top part of the walls and let in the lights from outside. If they could get up there, they would be high enough.
“Ladder!” Terri called over the alarm as he pointed to a ladder leaning on the wall.
They wasted no time and started up. Once at the top, they opened the window (there was a latch so that flying students could easily fly out) and climbed onto the side of the building. They didn’t have much footing but it would have to do.
“Sulley, over here!” Terry called out. Sulley heard and ran towards them, bringing the house with him.
The blue monster looked exhausted and appeared to be slowing down a lot. They had been running for their lives all night and it was starting to catch up with him.
“Just a little longer, Sulley!” Terry encouraged as he and his brother picked up a canister and got ready.
When the house was almost to the building, the Perrys banged the canister sideways against the building’s stone. It went flying out of their hands and hit the side of the school, bounced off, and flew into the air until it landed several feet away.
“You had it facing the wrong way!” Squishy shouted at them.
“Just hand us another can,” Terry said.
The house only had a step or two before it would be against the school. The Perrys banged the canister, making sure this time that it was facing towards the house, and sent it flying towards it.
It hit the top of the house and knocked some of the roofing off. The house stopped in its tracks, backed up a little, and looked up at them.
It looked pissed.
“Hand us another, quick!” Terri cried.
Squishy handed it to them. “It’s our last one.”
“Hey, down here!” Sulley shouted, “I’m the one who dented your ugly face in, remember?” That got the house’s attention. “Yeah, I’m the one who took you out. So why don’t you come get me?”
Sulley took off running away from the building and the house turned to pursuit. That put the chimney closer to them and made it a much easier target. The Perrys aimed the canister and then hit it against the stone.
Nothing happened.
“Why isn’t it working?” Terri asked.
“I don’t know,” Terry said as he kept beating it against the stone, “It must be jammed or someone made this too well.”
The house blocked their view of Sulley, but Terry’s heart dropped when the house stopped and he thought he heard him. Then, time seemed to slow down as the house threw Sulley up into the air. His arms swung out wildly as he tried hopelessly to find something to stop his descent.
His fall was finally stopped by the mouth of the monstrous house.
“NO!” Terry yelled out and he beat the canister against the stone again, more out of frustration than trying to get it to work. But it did work, only not when the Perrys expected it to.
They were yanked off of the building and sent wildly flying in the air. The ground went by as a blur until they could see nothing but sky. Then, the canister suddenly changed directions and they lost their grip on it several feet above the house.
For a moment, it seemed like they were levitating and they were able to watch the rocketing canister. Miraculously, it made its way towards the house. And to Terry’s shock and excitement, it flew straight into the house’s chimney.
That’s when they began to fall again. The last thing Terry saw before everything went black was fire and pieces of broken wood flying towards his face.
“I think he’s waking up,” he could hear Squishy say.
“Terry, can you hear us?” he heard his brother say.
Terry smiled. They were okay. They had survived the fall. “Yeah. We did it, guys. We beat the house. We avenged our friends.”
“Avenged them from what?” he heard Art say.
He opened his eye and there looking down at him were Terri, Squishy, Sulley, Mike, Art, Don, and Sheri. Tears swelled in his eyes as he looked at them all. “I thought I’d never see you guys again.”
“Geez, we knew you hit your head pretty hard, but we didn’t think it was that hard,” Mike said as he gave him a confused look.
Terry sat up and scanned his surroundings. He was on the couch, in the front room…
Of the house!
He tried to get up, but the sudden movement made him dizzy and his head hurt.
“Take it easy, Terry,” Don said, “You’ve got a nasty bump on your head.”
“I’ll say,” Sheri said, “I was afraid you’d get a concussion.”
Nothing was making sense to him. “Wait, what happened? What’s going on?”
“We got scared downstairs and you fell into the washing machine,” Sulley explained, “You’ve been knocked out for a while now. You’d wake up every now and then to say a bunch of nonsense.”
“But, the human that was downstairs-” Terry protested.
“That was my mask,” Squishy said as he showed it to him, “I forgot that I had it hanging up on the wall down there.”
“But, everything in the dream….” It sounded weird to call it that, “Seemed so real-.”
He heard the roar of the house and nearly jumped out of his skin.
“Relax, it’s just the movie’s creepy title screen.”
Mike was right. On the t.v. was the original monster house.
Terry finally relaxed a little, glad that his friends hadn’t really been eaten by a house.
“Speaking of the movie,” Don said, “You showed them the wrong one, Art.”
“What?”
Don went over to where a plastic bag laid on the floor. It had been the bag that Art had taken the movie out of. He took out another case. “The one you showed them was a kid’s movie.”
“Don, I think we’ve had enough movies for one night,” Mike said. The others nodded. “It’s late and you guys have school tomorrow.”
After they said their goodbyes to Mike and Sulley, everyone headed upstairs.
Well, everyone except for Don. He grabbed the bag again and pulled out the case. He opened it up and marveled at the disc’s creepy image.
“Don, aren’t you coming up?” Sheri said from upstairs.
“Later,” he said, “There’s something I want to do first.”
He took out Monster House’s disc and put in the new one. On the disc was a picture of a dirty white mask with red lines against a pitch-black background. In white plain capital letters, it read, “Friday the 13th”.