A lone van penetrated the layer of dirt and dust on the lonely road, stretching through the mazes of corn fields and scenic nothing. It was obvious that the van was the road's only traveler in a while, because the cloud of dust it raised behind it was about two times the size of the entire vehicle. There wasn't much of a town spread out before the road, houses dotted along the country side, a small town with markets and shops, a school, church, the bare necessities a town needed to get through. The van stopped outside of a large, white Victorian style house, with peeling paint and grass and weeds that were slowly engulfing the house. It was a bit secluded, in the middle of an abandoned apple orchard, the fruit withered and the trees dying. The engine cut and four people got out, a small family, the Watson family, to be precise. John Watson got out of the car, clutching his laptop case, and looked up at the house with skepticism.
"Well, this seems like the beginning of a stereotypical ghost story." He decided, shutting the door and going to the trunk to get his suitcase. The moving truck wasn't far behind them, it was having plenty of difficulty on the winding country roads, and the small car had gotten a head start.
"Try to have an open mind." Mrs. Watson insisted, breathing in the fresh (yet dusty) air.
"This place will be beautiful, with a new coat of paint, new roof, some landscaping; it'll be the talk of the town." Mr. Watson decided, lifting a large suitcase and throwing it on the dirt road.
"Harry, get out the car!" Mrs. Watson insisted, knocking on the window of the backseat.
"I refuse! Not until you take me back home!" Harry growled, locking the door so that her mother couldn't break in.
"This is home now." Mrs. Watson insisted with a sigh.
"No it's not!" Harry growled.
"Well, suit yourself. Live out of the car, see if I care." Mrs. Watson grumbled, but as soon as she walked away the door opened and Harry lumbered out. John could hear her rock music blasting through her ear buds as she made her grand entrance, scowling the best she could while chewing a wad of bubble gum. Harry was what you could call a bit of a rebel, and outsider to the well put together normal family the Watsons were. She had dyed her blonde hair a deep shade of black and then added purple and pink streaks in it, she wore black ripped jeans with whatever band tee shirt she could get her hands on, all covered with a leather jacket and chain necklaces. John, however, was quite the opposite. He had clean cut blonde hair, normal plain tee shirts, jeans, and sneakers on, not a sign of any jewelry or any type of rebellious clothing. He was, as Harry put it, 'the poster child of straight white families', and she was right of course.
"John, here's your suit case!" Mrs. Watson called, pulling out John's suitcase of whatever essential clothing items he needed. The rest of his extensive wardrobe was on the moving truck, which seemed to be taking its dear old time. Maybe they were sightseeing.
"You know, I saw three tumbleweeds on our way out here. Three!" Harry complained, grabbing her blue suitcase from the car and staring up at the house. "And you had to pick the most ugly, most rundown dump you could find." She added.
"Your father is going to fix it up nice and pretty." Mrs. Watson insisted.
"Dad hasn't fixed anything in his life; he's just going through a phase. I give it a week until he hires someone." Harry groaned.
"Midlife crisis." John agreed.
"It most certainly is not!" Mr. Watson defended. "It'll be perfect, I guarantee it."
"Neighbors look friendly too." John decided, looking across the street. As if on cue, a piece of peeling siding fell off of the abandoned wooden building. It was decorated with broken windows, graffiti, and it's very on No Trespassing sign posted on the door.
"Yes well, maybe we could fix that one up too." Mr. Watson shrugged. Harry groaned horribly, wheeling her suit case over the cracked sidewalk and aggressively pulling it up the deck steps. So this was home. John grabbed his suitcase and wheeled it into the house as well, pausing on the wooden deck and walking around back to look out over the apple orchard. It had to have been a massive farm, there seemed to be hundreds of trees planted out there, but now they looked dead and sad, decaying memories of the previous house owners. That had to have been years ago, this place couldn't have been occupied for about twenty years at least. John sighed, dragging his suitcase into the inside of the house. It was a bit more kept inside; at least there wasn't mold or anything. The floors were hardwood, with a small walk way opening up into the living room. Attached the living room was a kitchen and dining room, with old tile floors and appliances that looked older than time itself. There was no furniture or anything yet, but John was sure with some redecorating and remodeling, his dad's obscene vision of a nice house might just be possible. There was a set of stairs running off from the living room, curving slightly on the way up and leading to the upstairs bedrooms. Harry had already found her room, down the hall to the left, and there was another bedroom across from hers. That was bound to be John's. The first door on the left was the master bedroom, which would be his parents, and to the right there was a bathroom. John sighed, rolling his way down the hallway and opening the door to his new room. There was old carpet on the floor, a dusty window with gross moth-eaten curtains falling alongside it. There was a closet on the right side with one door, looking like a walk in closet to John. That was about it for his room, it was old and boring, but with the addition of a bed and a dresser, some posters and pictures on the wall, it would almost look like his old house. Their old house had been in the city, a small house squished along with all of the other houses, all looking exactly the same. John had liked it there of course, just because it was home. But there were simply too many people, too much litter, and the constant smell of gasoline and trash lingering in the air. So one day his dad had hatched a brilliant idea, move to the country side and fix up an old Victorian farm house. It wasn't hard to transfer schools, and Mr. Watson was a sales man for some big shot company, working out of his house, so it would be easy to move. Mrs. Watson could easily find work in this little town. John didn't mind the idea of moving as much as Harry did, he wasn't really leaving behind any close friends back at their old house. He was friendly enough, but john wasn't the friend making extraordinaire. Quite the contrary to Harry, who pretty much found a gang and stuck to them like glue. She usually hung out with the rough crowd, the ones who cheat on tests, pick pocket the elderly, and smoke cigarettes and other 'herbs' behind gas stations. Of course the Watsons hated that, but Harry was genuinely going to miss her friends from home. Harry was also part of the reason they were moving, she had gotten in trouble with the law back at their old country, she had stolen a lady's purse from some gas station and they just couldn't have that little detail spoiling their reputation as a wholehearted family. Usually people didn't connect John and Harry as siblings, when they were just moving and saying goodbye, some of the kids had commented on how ironic it was that they were both moving at the same time. It made sense though, Harry was a grade above John, and she didn't look anything like him with her dyed hair and scowl the size of the Grand Canyon. A large cloud of dust announced the arrival of the moving truck, parking loudly outside of the house. A couple of guys got out of the truck and went to help unload, Mr. Watson going out and meeting them with a large smile. John sighed, deciding that if he wanted to sleep in a bed tonight he ought to go out and help as well. Finally, when all of the furniture was in the house and the moving truck empty, the Watsons paid the men and it rolled away, leaving John to cover his mouth with his shirt in order to not inhale enough dust to clean a chinchilla.
"So, let's get some of this stuff inside." Mr. Watson decided. Most of the heavy stuff was already inside, the moving men had been generous enough to bring up the bed frames and dressers, but the couches, chairs, and mattress were still sitting outside, along with the many, many, many boxes of stuff they had. It was all sitting in the yard as if they were some weird hoarders, and John knew his mother wouldn't like that first impression. Even Harry came out to help load stuff inside, mostly because she was looking for her numerous boxes and her phone charger. So it was left to John and his parents to lug the couch into the living room, the dining room table into the dining room, and all of the boxes into the entry way.
"Alright John, find your boxes and go set up your room I guess, we'll start down here." Mr. Watson decided, ripping open a box and pulling out some candles. John nodded, walking upstairs to his room, happy to see a mattress on his bed and a dresser in the corner. He sighed, dropping a couple boxes onto the floor and tearing them open. Most of the boxes were clothes, others were posters of his favorite sports teams, some were his football trophies, and others were pictures. In about two hours, things were starting to look more like home. John had put his sheets and blankets on the bed, pinned up the posters, stuffed all of his clothes in the closet and dressers, put up his trophies on top of the dresser, and even found a pin to hang the picture of him and his friend from back home. John sat down on the bed, looking out the window once more to the abandoned house across the street. He had definitely been right; this was the ideal place to get haunted. They had dinner on paper plates that night, nothing special, just takeout pizza that was much worse than the ones they were used to at their old house. Harry was simply nibbling angrily on one piece, glaring at the ground as if she were trying to pretend this whole thing was just a terrible dream. Although John could easily eat half a pie by himself, the whole moving experience had slightly dulled his appetite, and he only ate one. His father seemed extra excited, and therefore extra hungry, and finished off the rest of the pizza in an effort to make up for the lack of consumption.
"This dining room and kitchen should be remodeled, I'm thinking new wallpaper, hardwood flooring, new appliances, counters, maybe we could even put one of those fancy wall fountains you see at that Chinese restaurant." Mr. Watson planned, looking anxiously around at the house to see what else he could destroy. I mean, sorry, 'improve'.
"We are not getting a wall fountain." Mrs. Watson insisted, frowning slightly at her husband's lack of taste. "We do have a budget, if you've forgotten."
"We'll save up for it, it'll be fun, like an adventure." Mr. Watson insisted.
"Why are you so obsessed with this whole refurnishing thing?" Harry asked in an announced huff.
"Because Harriet, it's a fun family bounding project." He insisted.
"I refuse to help. I don't want this house, let it rot under our feet." She snapped, getting up ferociously from the table and storming back up to her room.
"She'll get used to it." Mrs. Watson assured, but she sighed, not sounding too sure herself. Since there were no real dishes to wash, John was excused from the table to go explore a little bit, but since it was dark outside he wasn't too keen on poking around an unknown basement or attic. It was an old house, and he didn't want to find any of the old owners mummified somewhere. So he went up to his new room, which was furnished almost exactly like his old room, but different enough that he didn't feel quite at home. It felt like an odd, numb dream. That it was only temporary, and in a couple of days his dad would pack everything up and they'd move back to where they came from. But then again, that didn't seem too improbable right now. Harry was right, Mr. Watson's little 'fix everything' phase was temporary, and soon he'll realized he had destroyed the house trying to install some wall fountain and not know how to fix it. So they'd move back. There was no real explanation for his newfound obsession, but John had one theory. He thought his father was so bent up about fixing things because he couldn't fix the biggest problem he had, Harry. There was no correctional facility he could send her to, no counseling, he just had to wait until she made the biggest mistake of her life and then they couldn't move away from it. She'd land in jail and he hated the idea of that. John, on the other hand, didn't really mind having a dysfunctional sibling; it always meant the parents were lenient. Even if he had stayed out past curfew or maybe drank a bit too many sodas before bed or didn't finish his broccoli, he was still the good child, and he would forever be praised as long as Harry remained up to no good. Soon his little clock shone ten o'clock in bright red numbers, so he thought it best to put down his book and go to bed. John shut off the lamp beside his bed, the one he was reading by, and snuggled underneath his blankets, trying his best to notice the silence that surrounded this new home. Usually, in the city, there were so many sounds to distract you. There were always sirens, cars driving even in the early morning, people walking and talking, street lights to make sure your room was never pitch black. But here, out in the country, John was sure he couldn't see his hand in front of his face it was so dark. And the lack of noise made him focus on the sounds that surrounded him. The creaking of the old house, the crickets chirping outside, the wind blowing the trees around outside. For the first time in John's life, he finally understood why kids were afraid of the dark.