Locked With the Damned

Chapter One: House of the Damned

I wasn't with my parents when they bought the new house, but if I had of been I wouldn't have stopped them. I wouldn't have made them change their mind. I wouldn't have pitched a fit to find a different house. There were spirits in this house, a lot of spirits. More than a dozen I assume. Being a young girl you would think that I would be afraid of dead people in my house, but it was just the opposite. Ever since a year ago, the paranormal doesn't scare me. Only because I had no choice but to learn to live with it.

I was standing in front of our new house now. It was large, two, maybe three stories. A large porch and a lot of windows. It looked like it had a fresh layer of purple paint on it. I wondered what color it was before the repaint.

"A fresh start, isn't that what you wanted, Wynter?" My sister asked, stepping up beside me with her arms delicately folded over her flat chest and her long freshly manicured nails practically puncturing holes in her skin. Her long bottle bleach blonde hair was pulled up in a high, tight pony tail and her long bangs hung freely on the left side of her face. Her stance was stiff beside me. I sighed, waiting for her to go on. I guess she got the picture because then she said, "Well you got what you wanted. You always get what you want. Ugh. I can't believe you made me move all the way out to LA." She muttered and then glided her long, flawless body up the stairs to the new house, but not before informing the moving guys to be extra careful with her make-up boxes. Yes, I said boxes.

"I don't always get what I want." I mumbled once she was inside the house. Normally I wouldn't let her get away with being a bitch to me, but ever since last year, I owed her everything. She's made it a point to remind me every time I try to yell at her for something, too. It gets annoying, but there's nothing I can do about it. Or rather, there's nothing that I will do about it.

Autumn and I were the complete opposites of each other, much like the season's autumn and winter. Autumn was a social butterfly. Popular, played almost every sport, wore the latest styles of clothes, was never seen without make-up, and had a million friends. I don't think she's even been home on a weekend or been home before eleven at night, even on a school night. I, on the other hand, was a complete wall flower. I always did my homework, barely talked in class except to my friends, didn't play any sports, and rarely had plans on the weekend. Even back at home with my best friend, I didn't matter much to anyone. I was artsy, always painting something or someone, or writing, or playing piano. I was, and am, the complete opposite of my younger sister (yeah, that's right, I said younger; younger by three years; she's thirteen) and my parents were always so proud of her.

I watched my mom talking to the real-estate agent as I made my way towards the porch. I didn't know the ladies name, but just from her fidgety demeanor I didn't like her. "And where is Mr. Summers?" She asked, looking around for my dad like a little lost puppy. I walked past the two women and into my new home. My dad was at his new job; well, sorting out his new job. Back home my dad was a surgeon for the ER. He would be called into work mostly at night, and when he wasn't working he was at home sleeping. My mom was a lawyer and made it a point to stay at work as long as she possibly could before coming home; until one or two a.m. My parents never spent time with one another, or us, not even when they were off for holiday vacation. Though holidays never felt happy and cheerful with my family.

I walked up the large staircase in the front of the house, taking in the new scenery. The house was incredibly beautiful. But it held a mystery. Something deep, dark, and possibly deadly. All the more reason for me to love it here.

I walked to the end of the hallway and into the last room on the right. My new room. The movers had already stuffed everything into my spacey room, but placed the piano in the middle. That thing wasn't going to be easy to move out of the way. Jeez. I wish my dad paid them enough to unpack everything for me; with all the stuff I had I was going to be unpacking and getting things in order for the next few days. I shut the door behind me and locked it. The last thing I needed was for my sister to be bugging me to unpack her room, too. I owed her, but I wasn't going to unpack her shit. I wasn't her maid.

I grabbed the first box I saw and began un-boxing my paint supplies. I stopped and realized that I needed to first get the desk in order before pulling everything out. I grabbed the medium sized black desk that had been placed in the back right corner of the room and pulled it back against the right wall. There. Now I could unload everything. I put all my paints and brushes in the drawers and made it a point to not look at the picture that I left in the middle drawer. I slammed the drawer shut and turned around to see a tall boy with dirty blonde hair and dark eyes standing behind me. I stepped back, almost tripping over some boxes, and tried to make since of things. And then I realize… "What the hell are you doing in here?"

"Just…came to say hi." He said, moving some dirty blonde hair out of his face and flashing me an innocent smile.

"Well hi." I said, walking past him and grabbing another art box. This one was filled with pictures, photographs, and music. Plus some tacks I was going to use to hang some of the pictures up on my new bedroom walls. He stayed quiet, watching me as I unpacked and placed things in separate piles. "So…you're dead." I said nonchalantly. I heard him suck in a breath and then exhale. I smirked at myself. 'Gottcha.' I thought in victory. I grabbed some nature photographs and some tacks and began placing them in abstract forms on my wall above my art desk. He stayed silent and I could tell that I had completely threw his off guard.

"What makes you say that?" He finally asked. He moved beside me and looked at the new pictures I had placed on my wall. I put the last picture on the wall and smiled over at him.

"There is no light around you." I said. The look in his eyes after I said that dimmed a little and his face turned pale. I turned away from him and went to another box; this one had a bunch of jewelry in it. Of course I was in a hurry when I packed, so I didn't separate anything and now everything was strung and tangled together. I turned back to him. "There is darkness. Only darkness." I whispered. He turned away from me and walked to the other side of the room.

"Is that a bad thing?" He asked.

I shook my head. "I…don't exactly know." He looked like he was about to say something but a knock came at my door. "What?" I sighed. The boy hid behind my large book case in the corner of my room and waited.

"Can I come in?" It was my mother's voice.

"Of course. It is your house after all." I retorted. I unlocked the door and stepped back as she walked in with an elderly woman behind her. The funny thing about this old woman was that she kept switching from young to old every minute, and she was surrounded by darkness too. This woman standing beside my mother was dead.

"Wynter, this is Moira. She's the house maid." My mom said with lack of emotion and interest.

"Hello, dear." The old-young woman said. She was blind in her right eye and her graying red hair was pulled up. When she transformed though, the age seemed to melt off of her, and she was a beautiful young woman with vibrant red hair, long legs, a slim figure, and a pointed face. Her outfit also changed; what was once an ugly old, long maid dress was now a short, barely covering her up shirt. Like one of those 'sexy' maid outfits girls wear on Halloween.

"Hi." I said pointedly, crossing my arms over my chest. She seemed nice, when she was old.

"Wynter, where's Autumn?" My mom asked, not looking up from her iPhone.

"I don't know." I answered. She scoffed and shook her head and then turned to leave. Moira stayed in the room for a few seconds, staring at me. She knew I knew that she was dead. My mom called for her from the hallway and then she quickly turned to leave, shutting the door back behind her. I locked it before my mother had the chance to bother me some more. When I turned back around I bumped into the boy again. I 'umpfed' and back away from him again. "You gotta stop doing that." I mumbled and side stepped past him and grabbed the box of jewelry again. I went over to the mattress that had yet to be set up on my bed stands and dumped the box out, probably making all the tangling worse. "So what's your name?"

"Tate. What's yours?" Maybe he didn't hear my mom call me by my name.

"Wynter."

"What's your last name?"

"What does it matter?" I asked, looking up from the jumbled mess of necklaces on my bed and swished my purple bangs out of my face.

"Just curious." He shrugged.

"Summers." I answered, crossing my arms over my chest.

"Isn't that ironic?" He laughed.

I smirked and dropped my arms. "My sister's name is Autumn." I looked back down and started pulling apart the necklaces again. Stud earrings were crammed in there as little surprises to stick in my finger.

"Your parents must be hippies." He sat down beside me on the mattress and picked through the jewelry.

I raised my eyebrows at him. "Are you kidding me? My parents are far from easy going hippies; my dad is a surgeon and my mom is a lawyer. Did you not see my mom when she walked in here? All she cares about is her iPhone."

"Interesting…" He trailed off, getting up and inspecting my art desk.

"How many of you are there?" I asked.

"What do you mean?" He questioned, not looking at me as he continued to shuffle through my paint and brush drawers.

"When we got here I could sense that there were more of you…more ghosts."

"What, are you a medium or something?"

I laughed and shook my head. "No, just a messed up kid."

"There are a lot of us here." He reached into the drawer in the middle of my desk and pulled out the canvas that was in there. It was my most recent painting. My heart began to race. No one's seen that painting, and now a complete stranger (a ghost!) was marveling at it. "Some won't show themselves to you, though. Well, maybe just to scare you and your family. That would be funny, actually."

I did laugh at the thought of some of them scaring the shit out of my sister and parents. Maybe it would scare them straight. Yeah, probably not. "But why you then? Why are you showing yourself to me?" I got off my mattress and walked over to him. I tried to take the canvas away from him but he held it above my head so that I couldn't reach.

"Because you seem…very interesting." He mumbled, looking up at the painting still above my head; it was a flower scene, the colors dark and fading to light, the flowers messy and crumbled looking, like they were in a storm, a storm nobody would want to be caught in.

"Thanks." I muttered with lack of interest. All I wanted was my painting back. I jumped up to get it but he held it higher. He smirked and I blew out a pout in frustration.

"I didn't mean it as an insult." His smirk faded and he handed the dark canvas back to me.

"I didn't take it as one." I said, putting the painting back in the middle drawer and slamming it shut. I had a feeling that I was going to need a lock for it. "So, Ghost Tate," I turned back to him with a bright smile on my face. It appeared that my sudden mood swing startled and confused him. "Since you're here, wanna help me unpack?"

He cocked his head to the side and looked at me like I was some new form of life. "It really doesn't bother you that I'm dead?"

"Should it?" I asked.

"Yes." He answered simply.

"Do you want it to?"

"No."

"Then stop asking and help me. Or not. I don't care. Just don't stand in my way. Unless I can walk through you." I said, putting my hands on my hips. He looked pretty solid.

"Try." He smirked.

"Why?" I asked skeptically.

"Try." He repeated with a nod and then held his arms out. "Go ahead and try to walk through me."

I sighed, figuring that we weren't going to get anywhere unless I attempted to walk through him. So I closed my eyes and walked into him, expecting to go straight through him, but didn't and smacked into his hard chest. I could feel myself blush from embarrassment. I stepped back from him and rubbed my head to ease the redness in my face away.

"Not everything you know about the supernatural is true, Wynter. That was a test. And you failed." He said amused. The way he said my name sent shivers down my spine, and I didn't know why.

"Enlighten me." I whispered faintly. His dark eyes bored into my light ones and for some reason I felt like giving him a hug, but I didn't. Instead I bent down and handed him a box with some books in it. "Help me." I mumbled, not breaking eye contact with him.

"I don't know if I can."

-X-

"Freak, mom wants you." Autumn's voice sounded from outside my door. Tate and I looked up from my bed where we were trying to put the stand together. She banged on my door and twisted the knob to try to get in. Now, I knew she wasn't that stupid to think that she could get into a room that was locked, unless she had a key. And she didn't have a key. I growled and got up. I unlocked my door and in barged my superficial sister along with a boy with blonde hair and blue eyes. He was taller than her, but looked around her age.

"Who is that?" I asked, nodding my head towards the boy who was now standing beside her.

"Michael Langdon, our new neighbor. Who's that?" She motioned towards Tate.

"Tate." He answered for himself.

"What do you want, Autumn?" I sighed.

"Mom wants you for something. Probably to take the trash out." She waved at me and then pulled Michael with her out of the room. There was a hidden meaning behind 'taking the trash out'; my sister thinks of me as trash ever since what happened.

"I'll go see what she wants. You can come too, if you want." I turned to him but he shook his head. He looked a little freaked out, but I didn't ask why. "Suit yourself." I muttered and then quickly walked down the stairs. I could hear the annoying laughter of my mother and another woman coming from the kitchen. I lingered in the doorway to listen for a minute.

"Oh I know! Children are such a handful. Especially my oldest, Wynter. She's the reason we moved here." I walked into the kitchen before she could say anymore. "Oh, Wynter!" She didn't look surprised that I heard her say what she did. "Wynter, I didn't see you there." Liar, but whatever. "Come here and meet our neighbor. Constance, this is my sixteen year old, Wynter." She pulled me in front of an older woman with obvious dyed blonde hair.

"Constance Langdon, dear." She held her hand out to me and I shook it once and then let go.

"Langdon, Michael's mom?" I asked.

He face lit up, but it wasn't in delight. "Oh, you've already met Michael?" She asked. I nodded. Then she changed the subject rather quickly. "Wynter, such a pretty name. Such a pretty season."

"Thanks…" I trailed off. I felt more than uncomfortable standing here; talking to a stranger that was rather, well, strange.

"Seems as though my son and your daughter have taken a liking to each other rather quickly, Dani." Constance said, sipping on whatever my mom had poured in her mug.

"Yes they have. Oh, the reason I called you down here, Wynter, is to let you know that when your father and I are at work, Constance is going to be checking up on you. Your sister, I suspect, won't be home much either, and I don't want you to be all alone in this house during the day and possibly the night. Moira won't be much company because she'll be cleaning."

"Thanks mom, but what's the point in getting this huge house if no one's going to be here to enjoy it?" I asked. She glared at me and then put her hands on my shoulders and led me out of the kitchen.

"Don't you ever embarrass me like that in front of new people again." She hissed, leading me to the stairs. I rolled my eyes at her. "I'm leaving soon and I won't be home tonight. Your father already told me that he won't be home tonight, either. And your sister has met some girls down the street that she's spending the night with tonight. I'll leave some money for pizza on the kitchen counter. You'll be alright, right?" Even though she acted like she hated me sometimes, I couldn't say that she didn't care. It felt like it, but that's just because of what happened last year. I don't know when my parents will look at me normally again…

"Yes, I'll be fine. I'm always fine." I answered.

"One of these days you won't be fine." She said sadly. We grew quiet and the silence made us both uncomfortable because she then turned away from me and walked back into the kitchen. I held myself as I walked back up the stairs slowly. I caught Moira coming out of my sister room with some empty boxes. Autumn was probably making her unpack everything while she hung out with her new friends. Moira smiled meekly at me and flashed from an old woman to a young woman as she walked by me. I smiled faintly at her and then entered my room. I shut and locked the door behind me. Tate was sitting on my now assembled bed, looking through my camera. "Nice pictures. What did your mom want?" He asked, not looking up from the digital device.

"Thanks and just to tell me that I was going to be home alone tonight." I shrugged, dropping my arms and beginning to hang up my clothes.

"Oh, but you won't be alone." I turned to see his mischievous smirk and something inside of me screamed. I wondered exactly what I had gotten myself into by moving here. And soon, I was certain, I would find out. And the outcome, whether I liked it or not, was going to change my life forever.

A/N: Hi there people. So over the weekend I decided to watch American Horror Story. The first season made me fall in love. Not only with the plot, but with the ever sexy, ever misunderstood Tate Langdon. ;) I was more than pleased to find out that he's also a main character in the second season. Maybe when I'm done with this fanfic I'll post one to go along with the second season.

Anywho, this is a Tate X OC fanfic.

Summary: Ten years after the Harmon's died and became locked in the house, Tate is finally over Violet, and the last thing he needed was interesting girl Wynter Summers moving into the Murder House. A year ago Wynter became attached to all things supernatural. But when she and her distant family move into the Murder House, will the inhabitance be too much even for her to handle?

So review and let me know what you think! I'll have the next chapter up in a few days or so.