Nightmare Manor

"Jesse, this is fucking stupid," Beca bit out between her clenched teeth. She was sitting in the front seat of his car with her arms crossed, not taking her eyes off the vehicle they had just been instructed to park behind.

The dark haired boy parked and pulled the emergency brake up in the off chance his car would roll off the grassy hill they were parked on. He twisted his torso to look at his best friend, head tilted towards her like he was a parent trying to talk sense into a child.

"We drove over three hours just to get here. I promise that it'll be fun," Jesse pleaded. "Besides, you agreed to come with me.

"You dragged me here under false pretenses!"

"No! I told you what we were doing and you said that it sounded great!"

"LIES! You told me that we were going to get food and then you brought me here instead, you bastard," she said between gritted teeth.

"We will get food after and I'll pay for whatever you want, all you have to do is get out of the car," her best friend bargained, seeing the look of consideration on her face. "You can even get food to take back with you."

Beca jerked her hand down to unbuckle her seatbelt, jumping out of the car and slamming the door shut. She looked at him through the rolled up window, her arms outstretched towards the nearby buildings, yelling, "Are you coming or not!?"

Jesse shook his head in amusement at her, and all it took was free food. He got out of the car, locking it as he caught up with Beca. The pair walked down a hill on a dirt path past a pumpkin patch, following the short road to a large fenced in area. Heavy metal music was blasting from speakers set up all around, different colored lights flashing randomly at the entrance. They came to a large booth with four lines, a sign above it reading:

Nightmare Manor

Cash to the Left, Cards to the Right

They both got in the cash line, Beca refusing to take any of her credit cards out of the car when she knew she would probably lose them in one of the three haunted walkthroughs. She'd rather lose the $60 she had on her than go through the hassle of canceling a lost card, but that was just her.

There were a few people in front of them, so Jesse focused on everything he could see in front of them in the attraction, but Beca had her back turned and looked at all the people who were just now coming in.

Directly behind them in line were a random group of girls, probably a sorority out for some fun on a Friday evening. From the back of the large group came a shrill scream and a cry of, "Oh my god, no! Stay away!"

Beca shuffled to the side a little to see what had happened. All she could see was an uptight looking blonde shuffling around away from something. Other girls started screaming and parted in the middle of their group to let by what had scared them, which was a little person dressed as some old guy. He looked fake, which made Beca wonder why anyone would be scared of him. The DJ and the guy stared each other down as he came closer to her, her face never changing from a look of disinterest. She tossed her head behind her at Jesse and he got the idea, so he ran up behind him and grabbed him, causing the goofy guy to turn and let out a shriek that could have easily come from that uptight blonde.

The smaller man moved on, Jesse giving Beca a knowing look before turning back and continuing to take in the area.

The DJ heard snickering and giggling from behind her. She swiveled her head around to glance at the girls behind her, who were all laughing at the scene before them. Beca couldn't help but smirk, but that smirk quickly turned into a small grin when she caught sight of the redhead with the group who was giggling.

Her hair was curled and came down below her shoulders, her eyes a piercing bright blue, and her smile was something Beca could only describe as beautiful. Which was not a word she used. She was wearing jeans, a blue v-neck that matched her eyes, and a navy blue coat to fight off the sprinkling rain and slight chill in the late-October air.

Beca couldn't take her eyes off of her, not even when she looked directly at her and gave her the once over. The redhead bit her lower lip and winked at her, making Beca's brain go haywire. The brunette probably had a dumbstruck look on her face that would have embarrassed her, but barely a second after the gorgeous girl winked she felt herself being tugged forward by Jesse.

"Your turn, Hillary Swank in Million Dollar Baby," Jesse said with a grin.

"You know, when you reference an actor you don't have to reference the specific movie they were in," came Beca's deadpan reply.

"Fine," he said, raising his hands over his head in surrender. He quickly returned to his normal stance, continuing their conversation, "I already bought mine, so get the VIP Three Haunts."

"Why VIP?"

"It gets us to the front of the line," Jesse said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Beca squinted her eyes at him, her eyebrows coming together, but she relaxed her features as she turned to the middle-aged woman in front of her. "What he said."

"Thirty-five dollars," she said with a smile.

The alt-girl visibly flinched at the price, yet still handed over her money to get the wristband and followed Jesse past the booth and into the heart of Nightmare Manor.

Directly in front of them was a huge wooden building that was made to look like a torture chamber that was deemed The Cave. To the left of that was a sitting area with a screen projecting live footage of people walking through the actual house, which was to the left of that. It was two stories, yellow, and the windows were boarded up, but it all seemed to be in an effort to make the house look older and creepier than it really was. All the way to the right was a path that led up to the forest, which was called The Woods.

"Isn't this the best way to spend Halloween?" Jesse asked, sounding like a child.

"This looks lame," Beca responded, her eyes moving over everything again. Sure, if you were easily scared then this would be terrifying, but none of it bothered her.

"C'mon, I'm sure even badass Beca Mitchell will have a good time."

"As long as you keep screaming like a little girl, I think I'll have a blast," Beca said, leaving a shocked Jesse behind as she made her way to the house.

Nobody was in the VIP line, but they had to wait for them to send the other group through. That gave Beca time to look at a large poster they had up about the entire 2 acres of property that all of this was built on. Apparently, the house used to belong to a serial killer in the early 1900s. He supposedly murdered and butchered over thirty people in the house they were about to go in, he kept and tortured them in the barn that was now The Cave, and then disposed of the bodies in the forest that was called The Woods now.

"So this was an actual serial killer's house?" Beca heard someone ask from behind her. The voice sounded slightly bitchy and skeptic.

The reply was melodic and sweet, "Supposedly. I'm not sure how much truth there is to that legend, but it makes the whole thing really interesting."

"Now let me get this straight, Strawberry Shortcake," an Australian accent came next. "We are at a fake killer's house for fun? Why didn't we go to the Outback? Wolf Creek, aca-bitches. It was real."

"Amy, I swear if you bring that up one more time-" another voice muttered.

"Stacie, Amy, hush," the bitchy tone chastised. "We are not going to Australia. This is good enough."

"Aubrey, calm down. Your scared is showing," the melodic voice said, giggling.

"I'm not scared!" she screeched. "You know what, since you said that, you get to go in front."

"You got it, Miss Terrified."

"Shut up, Chloe."

Beca recognized the scream and the laugh, but she couldn't be sure. And she wasn't about to turn around and let the group know she had been listening to their banter. She was about to say something to Jesse, but when she looked up he was gone.

"We're kind of a small group, it's just the two of us, do you think that we could join you all?"

The small DJ turned to find her best friend standing with the girls from earlier, speaking with the redhead. She thought for a second, before turning to her group of friends.

"I think that would be fine," the redhead smiled and made eye-contact with Beca. She swiftly turned back to Jesse, "And you are..."

"Oh! I'm Jesse and this is Beca," the goofy boy answered with a grin, motioning towards the shorter of them.

A dark-haired girl took a step forward and looked both of them up and down, "You both look really familiar."

"We aren't from around here," Jesse responded happily.

"Neither are we," a bigger blonde with and Australian accent said. "We're a bunch of kick-ass singers from Barden University. You may have heard of us, The Barden Bellas. We're kind of a big deal."

Beca struggled to hold back a laugh, gaining her a look from another blonde.

"Something funny, Hobbit?" she asked. The redhead smacked the blonde on the shoulder, but her gaze never left the DJ.

"No, not at all. A cappella is kind of lame, though. Especially at Barden," Beca chuckled.

"So you have heard of us?" the redhead chimed in. One of her perfect eyebrows was raised and she seemed to be ignoring the lame comment.

"We go to Barden," Jesse answered quickly.

"Really?" the redhead grinned.

"Yeah, we work at the radio station," the boy threw in.

"Well, I'm Chloe," the redhead said, she then motioned to each person as she spoke, "this is Aubrey, Stacie, Amy, Cynthia Rose, Jessica, Ashley, and Lily."

The group talked for a while, mainly to Jesse, Beca occasionally throwing in comments until their party was led up to take a picture and then walk through the house. Jesse managed to squeeze in next to the uptight blonde Aubrey. Beca stood next to Stacie and Lily, who kept whispering things about prison and knowing where the bodies were.

After they got cards to find the picture online, they all walked up towards the house. The hallway was wide enough for one person to fit, so everyone formed a line with Aubrey at the front, then Jesse, Stacie, and Beca. The others kind of grouped together and mixed around too much for Beca to see who was where.

That was when the chaos began.

The hall was dark and filled with dismembered body parts hanging from the walls and ceiling. Beca heard two shrill screams from in front of her, most likely Jesse and Aubrey, causing her to laugh as they made their way through the rest of the butchering room.

The second they rounded the corner, everything changed. Music fit for a horror movie was playing at a deafening volume, multiple strobe lights going at once as they walked into a bright room full of furniture. The walls were covered in blood and right as Beca walked in, somebody slammed shut a dresser in the corner, revealing a creepy man in a black cloak.

"MOVE IT GINGER SPICE!" Beca heard Amy yell from the back.

Without warning, everything went black again. The hallway was pitch black and the floor slanted. Beca was careful to maneuver so that she didn't fall. Two screams were heard from the front and back of the line, both calling out, "SHIT, WHAT TOUCHED ME?"

Beca felt two hands grip her upper arm and urge her forward, shoving her into the already speedy Stacie. The taller girl let out a scream, grabbing Beca's hand and taking off running.

The next few rooms were all dark with strobe lights disorienting everyone, a mixture of furniture to block the path and screaming people running at them to scare them. Everyone in the group seemed terrified except for Beca, who was just being pushed and pulled in every which direction, but she wasn't complaining. No one was even trying to scare her since all the others were terrified.

The group was suddenly thrown into a room that appeared to be a torture chamber. Sharp, bloody objects hung from the walls, body parts dangled from the ceiling, and the whole room smelled of rot and decay.

"I think I'm gonna be sick," Jesse called out, moving his arm to cover his nose.

They all continued to move through the flashing lights of the torture room into the pitch black of the next hallway, but this one continued around a corner. In the darkness, hands came from the walls to run their fingers through people's hair or grab their ankles. A shrill scream came from just behind Beca, the hands on her arm tightening their grip as a voice yelled, "That's my hair!"

Beca couldn't help but laugh and turn her head to see who had been holding her most of this time, her face going slack when she made out the soft features of Chloe. She was shaking her red hair around, attempting to get the feeling of unknown fingers touching her out of her mind.

Before she was caught staring or ran into something, Beca turned her eyes back in front of her to see the next room. It had a small girl running up to them, covered in blood, screaming at them to play with her teddy bear that she held in her hands. Stacie and Aubrey chimed in with ear-splitting cries of, "NO, god no, please no, I DON'T WANT YOUR BEAR." The two took off running, dragging the others with them to the next room that simply contained a staircase.

"There's no way in hell I'm walking up those stairs," Chloe said over the suspenseful music.

The brunette turned her head to the other girl, a smirk on her face as she said, "You can either go up the stairs or play with the teddy bear."

A look of terror came over her beautiful features and she gripped Beca closer and pushed her forward with her slim body, "Keep moving."

The DJ chuckled as she followed Stacie up the staircase, not being phased when she felt hands graze her legs. The same could not be said for anyone else, who quickened their pace as more screams rang out.

Once up the stairs, everyone started sprinting through the strobe light illuminated room that contained mirrors and furniture written on in blood. Suddenly, a large hole in the wall that had to be the way out was visible. A woman who looked like an older Wednesday Addams was crawling from underneath a table and grabbing for them as they burst through the exit.

"GET AWAY, SMALL GHOST," Amy screamed as she ran past the woman and onto the wooden deck outside.

Everyone swiftly made their way down the stairs and around the house, back into the main hub of Nightmare Manor.

"Holy shit, we lived," Stacie said as she sat down on one of the picnic tables in front of the projection screen.

"Of course we did. The whole thing was fake," Aubrey proclaimed calmly like she hadn't been one of the people screaming for her life less than a minute ago.

"Do you run? You seem really fit." Jesse asked the blonde, doing his best to be like the witty guys in the romantic comedies he loved so much.

"Calm down, Lover Boy," Amy said with her hand held out in front of her.

"I do cardio if you must know," Aubrey responded with no hint of flirtation in her tone.

"How about we do the next house?" Jesse said, his head slightly down to hide his embarrassment.

"I'm not too sure that our little ginger is going to be able to do that," Cynthia Rose laughed. One of her hands was slightly covering her mouth to hold in her chuckles and the other was motioning towards Chloe.

The redhead was clinging on to Beca for dear life, her face buried in the other girl's back and her hands clenching the DJ's left arm like it was the only thing keeping her on the ground. Aubrey's eyebrows scrunched together as she stared at the scene before her in fascination.

"Chloe, come on, there are two more things to do," Aubrey said.

"I think I'll pass," came Chloe's muffled reply.

Aubrey stepped forward to comfort and convince her best friend to continue with the group, her hand resting on the other girl's back. "You'll have fun, I promise."

"The next one is supposed to be dark and claustrophobic," Chloe deadpanned.

"It's all-" Aubrey began, but she was quickly cut off.

Beca raised her hand slightly, looking around at the group as she spoke, "I'll stay out here with her while you all keep going."

"No, you keep going. I don't want to ruin the fun," Chloe's head shot up from behind Beca, she moved over so that she was at the brunette's side instead of her back.

"I'd rather not go in there, I don't like tight spaces," Beca threw in smoothly. Jesse gave her a look like he was about to argue, but she quickly defended her position, "I was going to stay anyway."

"Beca, you don't-" Jesse started before Amy grabbed and started dragging him away.

"Keep Red safe, we'll be back!" Amy yelled at the two as the rest followed her.

Aubrey gave Beca a questioning glare, yet she continued on towards the next building and swiftly made her way to the front of the group. The DJ stuck her hands in her pockets as she watched them go, waiting till they were inside before she turned to her new companion.

"You really didn't have to stay-" Chloe mumbled.

"No," Beca cut in, "I seriously didn't want to go in there. The first one wasn't fun and I doubt they get better as you go along." She let out a small laugh that seemed to ease the other girl's mind.

Chloe smiled at her, making her heart skip a beat, and crossed her arms as she asked, "Do you really go to Barden or was that made up?"

The brunette smirked, her hands remaining in her pockets, "No, that was true. I'm just a freshman, though."

"Freshman?"

"I just started a few months ago, I actually remember you from the Activities Fair."

"What!?" Chloe asked incredulously. "I don't remember talking to you."

"You didn't, I avoided most of the people there. I just remember seeing you handing out fliers."

"Someone's a bit of a stalker," Chloe pointed out in her joking tone.

"Oh, yeah. Totally." Beca scoffed. "You know, you look a lot different when you're awake." The redhead started giggling, making the DJ's smirk turn into a genuine smile.

"Well, I'm glad my stalker is so sweet. Most people would be making fun of me at this point for not going to the next house," she mentioned, her eyes focusing on the ground and proving that she was embarrassed by it.

"Hey," Beca sighed, reaching out to put her hand on the girl's shoulder and leading her towards one of the benches to sit down as she explained, "I wouldn't make fun of you. I'll make fun of your blonde friend and Jesse because they're both screaming like idiots, but definitely not you."

"You're a really sweet person for someone who got that worker to scare her friend."

"He deserved that," Beca deadpanned. "He tricked me into this, so he had it coming."

"I'm glad he tricked you into it or else I'd be forced to go through those houses," Chloe admitted.

"Then you'd have to find a different stalker to stay behind and keep you company," she feigned shock and caused the other girl's bright blue eyes to glimmer as she threw her head back in laughter.

They continued joking around and getting to know one and other until their friends returned from the woods, the group led by a screaming Jesse and Aubrey running down the hill from the forest.

"OH GOD, IS HE STILL BEHIND US?" Aubrey screeched as she held onto Jesse's hand.

"I CAN STILL SEE HIS CHAINSAW," Jesse cried as he came to a halt before Beca, bending over to catch his breath.

"Have a good time?" the shorter brunette smirked.

Stacie made her way towards the group, leading the other girls as they all laughed, "You should have seen these two back there. Oh my god, they were freaking out. It was hilarious."

"I can tell," Chloe grinned. "Now that you've all had your fun, can we go?"

"Chloe's right, we have practice tomorrow," Aubrey turned to look at the girls as they all groaned. Before anyone could protest she began walking towards the exit, the whole group following her, with the exception of a certain redhead.

"In case I don't see you around at Barden," Chloe plucked a pen off of a waiver table and took Beca's hand in hers, pushed her sleeve up, and wrote a string of numbers on the brunette's forearm. She winked at the DJ and kissed her cheek, whispering so close that she could feel her lips graze her ear, "Give me a call sometime."

Beca stood in her place, dumbstruck, as the other girl sauntered away.

"You need to call her," Jesse said, just as dumbfounded at the quick come on.

"I'm going to," Beca smiled at the numbers, seeing that the redhead had drawn a heart next to them with her signature under it. If she was honest, the brunette would have the number memorized before they even got back to the car, but she wasn't about to admit to that.