A/N: For the challenge "cliffhanger" at Xana's Lair, a pretty amazing forum. I can't technically win, but I like participating for fun. I'm pretty happy with how this turned out. I had sooo much fun writing it, and I hope you have fun reading it.

It was a dark and stormy night.

Not really.

It was night, but there wasn't a cloud in the sky. The moon wasn't full; it was waxing, but still did a suitable job at lighting the countryside.

Odd and Aelita stepped out of their car and examined it. Three flat tires and a crushed hood. Perfect.

Odd had been driving, but Aelita had been the first one to spot the small little critter crossing the street. One thing led to another: Odd swerved and ended up going off the road and into a tree trunk.

"We're lucky we weren't killed," Aelita said.

Odd's eyebrows twitched. "Speak for yourself! I had just changed the oil! I had just waxed this thing!" He walked over to the car and patted its crumpled hood affectionately. "I'll miss you, ThreeTrois, you were a good and faithful car."

Aelita shook her head and walked over to the passenger side to retrieve her purse. She pulled out her cell phone and pursed her lips in disapprovingly. "No service. You?"

Odd pulled his phone out of his pocket as he examined every square inch of his car's shattered remains. "Nothing. Looks like we're going to have to flag someone down."

The two walked to the edge of the road to see if they could attract some random car. Any random car. Even an unrandom one. However, the road was absolutely deserted.

"I could have sworn that there was more traffic when we were driving. Remember that car that almost drove me off the road?"

"You mean before you did it yourself?"

"Yeah, right before that. The red one."

"Do you mean the red one with the blue stripe?"

"No, the red one that was red."

"Ah, the red one with the German bumper sticker."

"No, that was the other red one."

"The blue stripe was left unmarred from any bumber stickers. I remember it clearly."

"The third red one then!"

Aelita smiled as he shook his head in dismay. He continued, "if anything, this just proves the point that there you used to be a lot more cars. Where did they all go?"

Aelita looked to the deserted road. It was almost peaceful, a river of black asphalt, surrounded by a sea of weeds and dying grass. The wind blew softly and rippled the plants as well as gently ruffling her hair. She let out a breath and sat down on the road.

"Aelita, what are you doing?" Odd asked.

She didn't shrug. She didn't say anything. She just bent back so that she was laying fully on the road.

Odd walked over, standing right above her, staring directly into her open eyes.

"Your head is blocking my view of the stars."

"I'm so sorry about that, Princess," he said, followed with a fake bow. He stepped out of her way with a flourish. "Please, continue your stargazing."

"You can stargaze too," she pointed out.

"I'd prefer not to be killed. I'll stargaze over in those weeds. It'll probably be more comfortable too."

"Suit yourself. But you used to be a lot more fun."

Odd stood standing, facing away from her, and she continued to star at the skies above. Finally, he relented and plopped down beside her.

"You win this one, are you happy now?"

She moved her head to each side in a jerking movement. "More or less. Definitely less if a car speeds by and kills you."

Odd chuckled and she felt the corners of her mouth widen into a smile. "I really am actually happy. Even if we're stranded here until morning, or until a car comes- assuming it doesn't kill us first, or until Jeremie gets worried enough to come looking for us."

"I think Einstein would win out of those three. He's a little scary like that- probably on his way as we speak."

Aelita laughed and gingerly pushed herself off the road. When Odd gave her a confused look, she smiled. "If Jeremie is on his way and thinks that we're in trouble, then we should get as far from the road as possible."

Odd leaped up from his sitting position. Aelita rolled her eyes in a combination of affection, annoyance, and envy. It was an interesting look.

It suited her.

They brushed the dust off their clothes and then decided to walk around the road to see if they could reach a town. "We were about ten miles away when we crashed," Aelita had said. "So it's not likely, but maybe we'll stumble into better cell service."

And so, their odyssey began. Kind of.

They had walked about two miles and were already yawning. "Maybe we could stop to take a break?" Odd asked.

Aelita shook her head. "We'd never get back up in time to keep walking. And then we'd be hot and tired in the morning. Not to mention hungry. You're missing your late night snack, midnight snack, and early morning snack."

Odd's stomach growled but he smiled good naturedly.

She slung an arm around his shoulder and skipped and the two moved on. As they walked, it grew colder and colder outside. They began to walk in short bursts of fastness to warm themselves up, followed by slowness as they huddled together with their teeth chattering.

Finally, at around three in the morning, or at least three in the morning according to Odd's watch. Aelita stifled a yawn. "Look," she said as she pointed to a house. "I know it violates every single rule of common sense for us to go in there, but I'm really tired."

Odd took a look at the house. It was made of wood with between two and three stories. The door was large, the windows were shuttered up, and the garden was untamed and wild.

They each shot each other a quick glance.

Their reactions were simultaneous.

"No."

They began to start walking again, all too content to put the mysterious house behind them and never return for the rest of their lives.

Which is why, ten minutes later, Aelita and Odd found themselves clinging on to each other as Odd hesitatingly put his fist to the door and knocked once. When that had no reaction, he knocked three more times.

(They hadn't wanted to come back, but as they had walked, they had heard a wolf howl in the distance. At first they had discounted it. But then it grew closer.

And closer.

And closer.

It didn't take either of them any time to decide to turn and run and run and run back to the house they had thought they were finished with. But as they got closer to the house, the wolf got closer to them. Neither dared look back, but they could swear they heard the chomping of its teeth, the mashing of its paws against grass and pavement, its low growl. And then they reached the house, they climbed onto the porch, and quickly scrambled to open the locked door.

Aelita turned around, and there was no wolf. The world was silent. Until half a minute later, in the distance, a forlorn howl was heard.)

There was no answer, so the two tried to take a step off the porch- the wolf was gone, it was safe- but a giant streak of lightening lit up the sky followed by a deafening roar of thunder.

Aelita looked at the sky. Maybe it had gotten cloudy while they were running and they just didn't notice in lieu of the wolf right behind them.

There still wasn't any sign of clouds. The night sky was pristine, crystal clear (with the stars glittering).

Suddenly, Odd jerked his head to the side. Aelita, startled, quickly followed his motion. All she saw was the dark yard of the house.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

Odd continued to stare into the empty yard. "I don't know. I thought I saw…a flash of white or something. It was glowing."

"It was lightening."

He shook his head. "I don't think so. It was really small. It almost looked like a…"

His voice trailed off as he continued to stare thoughtfully into the dark space that was the yard.

"Like a what?" Aelita prodded.

"It was about the same shape as a human," Odd mused.

She smirked. "Nice one Odd, we hear wolves and see lightening so you decide to make up a ghost story too."

Odd's eyes widened a fraction but then he smiled too. "You're right, you got me. So are we going to go in or get out of here?"

In response to his question, another blinding flash lit up the sky as a wolf howled. The howling was drowned out by the thunder, and when the large boom ended, there was no wolf to be heard.

"Let's go inside," Aelita said. "It may be stupid, but it's storming and there are wolves. But there's no way we're going to split up, right?"

Odd shook his head. "Not even if I see another ghoo-oooo-oost." He held his hands up and wiggled his fingers.

Aelita smacked them away lightly so he decided to knock on the door. "Here goes nothing."

"Maybe the thunder woke up whoever owns this place so they'll hear our knocking," Aelita suggested.

Odd lifted his hand and knocked once. A loud, hollow sound was heard followed by a long, low creak as the door slowly slid open. He and Aelita stood side by side as they watched in a horrid fascination as the door continued to open, eventually stopping when it hit the inside wall.

Aelita turned to him. "No splitting up?"

"No splitting up."

They walked into the house, Aelita leading by a step or two. She didn't see Odd's worried look as he looked over his shoulder, into the dark yard. She didn't see as the doors slowly slid closed behind them, blocking any escape. She didn't see their freedom slowly shutting. Odd did though. And right before the doors shut (in the small crack, right as he was beginning to feel the panic at the events happening around him- this was just like the movies! And those always ended well- he saw a glowing white figure, holding out a shriveled hand towards him. It began it form a fist, and the split second before the door itself was closed, he saw the hand close).

At the loud boom, of the closing doors, Aelita's head whipped around. "What was that?"

Odd looked at her solemnly. "The doors shut."

"That doesn't even make sense. I didn't here them at all! They were so creaky when they opened, why would they close like they had just been built?"

Odd sighed and ran a hand through his hair. His spike was misshapen after being trapped outside and sweaty after running away from certain wolf-related death. "Aelita, we've discussed this. I can't do door related physics."

"Just like you can't do regular physics, you mean?"

"And you can't draw even draw something in the style of Jackson Pollok if your life depended on it. Darling, I had to give you special tutoring so you could learn how to draw stick figures correctly. We barely got anywhere in that time."

Aelita giggled and poked Odd. "Well I'm going to go open that door. This place is giving me the creeps."

Odd raised his eyebrows and took a step into the house. Light was still streaming in from small (and sometimes large) cracks between the boarded up windows and a wider hole in the wall, about a meter or two above the door.

The inside of the house was made of wood, probably cherry, Odd reasoned. They were in a small entrance area. If they walked straight, they would be led down a long, impossibly dark (he couldn't even see the end…or the middle…or much past the beginning, really) hallway.

On his left, there was a staircase that looked like it was damaged by termites, water, and mold. To his right, there was a small sitting area, though the word small hardly did it justice. There were two chairs, a comfortable looking armchair (though it did look a little shrunken and faded and maybe eaten, as it had holes in it with stuffing coming out) and a wretched wooden chair that looked hard and was missing one of its legs. The leg had been replaced with a small pile of books.

On closer examination, there were books everywhere. Some were lying right outside the door, as a sort of unused door stopper. The wall next to the staircase wasn't a wall at all. It was a long bookshelf, holding books of all shapes, sizes, and colors.

Behind him, Aelita went to the door and tried to pull it open, to no avail. Then she tried to push it open to the same result.

Then she tried kicking it down.

That didn't work either. Though it made her feel better.

Odd smiled at her frustrated growls and bent down by one of the bookshelves to examine the collection of the owner. Then he heard a strangles gasp come from Aelita. He jumped up and ran over to her, where she was calming herself down. Deep breaths. In and out. In and out.

"Sorry, there was just an owl that came in. It flew right over me, it's right over there now."

She pointed to the sitting area, where on top of a fireplace that Odd hadn't seen before (it was so dusty in the house, not to mention dark) an owl was perched. It was a dark brown with giant eyes. A bit of moonlight was right next to it, but the owl itself was in a dark patch. It looked at Odd with a tilted head, it opened its beak, and-

Whoooo

Whoooooooooo

Whoo

Then, it leaped into the air, beat its wings, and flew out the window.

"I swear it was staring right at me," Aelita whispered. "And then I think it looked at you. I don't like this. We've got to get out of here."

"Did you have any luck with the door?"

Aelita shook her head. "It's just like that one episode of Hospital of Horrors. Remember it?"

Odd laughed. "The one where all the patients died? The series finale?" Aelita nodded and he smiled. "That came out years ago."

Aelita shrugged. "I miss it. A lot has changed since then."

"Yeah," Odd said. "Nothing really turned out the way we thought it would, did it?

"Everything has worked out in the end though, even if we didn't know what was going to happen during most of it." Aelita half-smiled then grew serious.

"Do you think anyone is in here?"

Odd didn't pale, but he did stop in his tracks. A remarkable feat, seeing as he wasn't going anywhere to begin with.

"We didn't bother to find out, did we?"

"No, ya didn't," a new voice said. Odd and Aelita turned away from the door, where they had been staring into the hole the owl had disappeared out of. Standing at the top of the rotting stairs was a large man with a scruffy look about him. He needed a shave (though Odd would forgive him, as it wasn't even five in the morning yet) and his clothes were wrinkled and dirty (though he probably didn't get many visitors out in the country, Aelita reasoned).

Though neither of them cared about his appearance, because there attention was drawn to the gun in his hand, pointed right at them.

(Guns do have a tendency of drawing attention to themselves.)

Odd bit his lip and smiled. "Our car broke down. Would you happen to have a phone?"

The man smiled liked a shark as he slowly walked down the creaking stairs (creaking seemed to be a common theme, in this house). "I do. But it's not very useful to make calls on. I don't have much electricity out here."

"That's alright," Aelita said. "But can we maybe rest here for just a bit? It'll only be a few hours."

The man stared at her, like he was drilling a hole right through her. Finally, after a minute, he said, "yeah, okay."

Aelita beamed. "Thanks!"

"Don't mention it," the man grunted. Then he took his gun and began to wipe it on his disgusting shirt. He bent down and started a fire in the fire place, though the smoke coming from it was a dark grey which caused Odd and Aelita to cough. The man glared at them.

Aelita tried to make small talk.

Odd tried to make small talk.

The man didn't seem to like talking.

He got up and left the two by the fire. When he was out of earshot, they scooted by each other (neither had wanted to chance the ancient wooden chair, so a descision to share the armchair had been made) and had a whispered conversation.

"There's something not right about this guy," Aelita said.

Odd nodded. "Did you see some of the books he has lying around?" He reached for the nearest book (it was thrown on the floor) and handed it to Aelita.

She checked it over. "It's a book about hunting. There's nothing wrong with that."

"It's one of many weird books," Odd said. "Believe me, you're right, something is definitely off about him. And if we're going to stay here, we might as well find out what it is."

Aelita agreed and the two took out their cell phones for light as they walked down the dark hallway. "If he catches us, it's because I'm looking for the bathroom," Aelita said. Odd silently nodded as he peeked through the keyhole of a room. He hadn't expected any results, at first, seeing as it was pitch-black inside the house. But like the entryway, the room had holes in the walls and between the wood nailed to the windows.

Charming.

"There's a cot, in there," he said. There had been a cot, lying right in a pool if silver moonlight. Almost like an island, surrounded by dark and dangerous waters.

"Let me see," Aelita said as she pushed him out of the way and took his place in front of the door. "What's that on the bed? Can you get us in there?"

Odd smirked. "I'm insulted that you even have to ask."

He pulled out a small bag from a pocket and began to work. Aelita kept a lookout as he worked, smiling whenever she heard a curse or a muttered encouragement. In no time, Odd had the door swinging open. He held out his arms.

"After you, Princess."

"Why thank you."

They walked into the room. It did have a small cot, but it also had a desk with several more large books. The floor was still the dark cherry wood but the cot was a dull grey. "What is this on the bed?" Aelita asked. She blanched. "Is that…blood?"

Odd bent down to examine it. "I don't know. Maybe he gets nosebleeds or something."

"But he went upstairs, he came from upstairs. So why would he be sleeping in a bed downstairs?"

"A guestroom?"

"Because he gets so many visitors. Why wouldn't he? The house has holes in it, Odd. It's in the middle of nowhere. It has no electricity!"

They continued searching the room, which they discovered had a rat and bug problem. "I've counted five mice," Aelita grumbled. "This guy is lucky he hasn't had some disease by now. I mean there's dirt everywhere!"

"Hey, Aelita?" Odd called. "There's something I think you should check out."

Aelita walked over to where Odd was. "What is it?"

Odd motioned to a wall, which was covered by newspaper clippings. "I might just be a little paranoid, buuuut they're all about the same thing," he said.

"What?"

"A bunch of people who went missing, a possible serial killer, and recommendations for the best places to eat Indian food."

"Indian food?"

Odd pointed to a cut-out. "Right here, it talks about Indian food."

"Odd, right above that is an article on Jack the Ripper."

Odd blinked. "That would make more sense. Anyway, this is seriously starting to worry me."

Aelita was about to respond when their cell phones turned off. Both of them. At the exact same time. And they were plunged into darkness. Not even the light coming in through the wall could be seen. They began to grab onto the wall and feel there way to the door, but Aelita stopped suddenly. Which made Odd run into her.

"I feel something sharp," she said. "It's on the wall. It feels like…a knife, maybe?"

"Well there's nothing we can do about it now, let's go, Princess. I'll take my chances with the wolves. And the storm. And Jeremie's driving."

Suddenly, there was a blinding white flash that filled the room. They had to shut their eyes in reaction, and when they were able to open them again, it was dark again.

"Odd. Was that anything like what you saw outside?"

"I think."

"Then I think you were probably right. Do you believe in murder victims and ghosts?"

"I think I'm really beginning to."

They grabbed each other's hand and sprinted to the door, stumbling and almost tripping, and even actually tripping twice.

They reached the door, but it was locked. They gripped each other's hands even tighter.

"One," Odd said.

"Two," Aelita continued.

"Three," they said together. They both lifted their legs and kicked at the door. It swung back and they ran into the dark hallway, heading towards the light that was the fire.

But they weren't alone when they got there. The man was standing, holding a knife. He had a strange expression on his face. One of utter happiness and rage.

It could also be identified as complete and utter madness.

At least his gun was gone.

"It's rude to snoop through other people's things," he snarled. Then he laughed. "Especially when they're kind enough to off you their hospitality and a place to relax for the night."

Odd and Aelita were still holding hands, and each grip was crushing the other's hand. But even with the ferocious grip, their palms were starting to sweat, causing them to slip. The man didn't seem to notice as he continued talking. He switched from topic to topic, saying lies, making up tales that never happened. Then he held the knife out.

And then the fire was extinguished. Somehow. (Maybe the ghosts were on their side). Odd and Aelita took the opportunity and sprinted to the still locked door. Then they rushed up the stairs. Some crumbled underneath them because of their combined weight but they didn't let it slow them down.

The man stayed, staring at the empty fire.

Upstairs, they ran into a room where they found a small candle and a book of matches. They lit it for light and moved all the furniture to the door so as to protect themselves. When everything they could possibly move was at the door, including two couches, three desks, an armchair, a wardrobe, two small tables, a bed, and three mattresses (the guy was either a hoarder or they were in a junk room), they sat, huddled together.

"I dropped my phone," Aelita murmured.

"That's okay," Odd said. He checked his phone. "No service anyway."

They were silent for a while before Odd got up, went to one of the tables. He pulled on two of the legs, eventually snapping them off. He handed one to Aelita.

"We don't go down without a fight, right?"

"No, we don't." They held on to each other tighter. Odd let his cell phone fall into the floor and it kicked it out of the way. There wasn't much use for it anymore. The candle lit the room enough, though it casted moving shadows of objects neither could see in the room. And they weren't going to suddenly walk into cell service.

They grew back into silence, a silence that remained unbroken.

Unbroken that is until they could hear footsteps, ascending a squeaky, partially broken set of stairs and a scraping sound that could only have been a knife, dragging against a bookshelf.

But even that was drowned out by a clap of thunder, a wolf's howl, an owl's who, and some ghost's haunted moan.