Home is where the weirdos are (6 of 13 for Halloween)
Amy clutched the last cardboard box labeled “Kitchen Stuff” and surveyed their new room. It was smaller than the pictures suggested, but the rent was cheap enough that neither she nor Ash were complaining.
“Is that a wolf?” Ash stood frozen in the doorway, staring at the massive gray creature padding down the hallway.
“Mostly wolf,” came a voice from the kitchen. A woman with platinum blonde hair and impeccable eyeliner emerged, coffee mug in hand. “That’s Balto. He’s a sweetheart. I’m Karen.” She sized them up with the practiced efficiency of someone who’d seen it all. “You two are the new couple, right? Welcome to the Misfit House.”
Within an hour, they’d met Tim, Karen’s boyfriend, whose biceps barely fit through door frames, and who spent most of the conversation texting people who owed money to the club. They’d encountered Becca in the bathroom, who apologized for the mess while video chatting with someone named “Chad” about his yacht. Jimmy had given them a thirty-second nod before returning to his headset, yelling something about a “raid” that Amy assumed was not the insect kind.
The basement door had been open, and they’d caught a glimpse of Axel’s lair—blacklight posters, a surprisingly nice sound system, and three different women’s phone numbers scrawled on a whiteboard marked “Call Back Maybe.”
“Oh, and there’s a python,” Karen added casually. “She’s Axel’s. Don’t worry, she’s fed. And Matt F crashes here sometimes. You’ll know it’s him because he leaves a trail of empty White Claw cans.”
“Matt F?” Amy asked.
“Yeah, there used to be another Matt. He moved out. We never bothered dropping the F.”
“Cool,” Ash said, in a tone that suggested it was decidedly not cool but also perfectly on-brand for their life choices.
The Halloween party was announced via a note on the fridge, written in three different handwriting styles as if multiple people had contributed:
*HALLOWEEN PARTY SATURDAY*
*BYOB*
*COSTUMES MANDATORY*
*Axel DJing don’t @ me – K*
“We should do something fun,” Amy said, scrolling through costume ideas on her phone.
Ash looked up from unpacking their books. “Victorian vampires?”
“I love you.”
Saturday
Saturday night arrived with the subtlety of a freight train. The living room had been transformed with orange string lights, a fog machine of questionable origin, and a folding table stacked with enough alcohol to summon the ghosts of bad decisions past. Someone had dressed the python in a tiny witch hat.
Axel emerged from the basement in a full-body Spider-Man costume, the fabric stretched tight over his frame. He tested the DJ equipment, nodding along to a bass line that rattled the windows.
Jimmy descended the stairs as what Amy could only assume was a level 80 Blood Elf Paladin, complete with foam armor and a sword that kept hitting the door frame.
“Dude,” Tim said, dressed as a shirtless firefighter. “You’re gonna take someone’s eye out.”
“It’s reinforced EVA foam, bro. It’s fine.”
Karen appeared in a devil costume that was mostly strategic red fabric and confidence. Becca wore angel wings and something white and clingy, her phone already out for Instagram content.
Matt F was a ghost. Specifically, a bed sheet with eye holes and a beer koozie somehow attached to the side. He was already drunk.
“You guys look amazing,” Karen said, admiring Amy and Ash’s velvet capes and period-accurate waistcoats. “Very Anne Rice.”
“Thanks,” Amy said. “We committed.”
“I can respect that.”
The party filled quickly. Friends of friends of people nobody could quite remember inviting. The music was loud, the fog machine was working overtime, and Balto had claimed the couch, judging everyone from his throne of throw pillows.
Around 10 PM, Matt F tried to do a keg stand, forgot he was wearing a sheet, and crashed into the folding table. The python, startled, slithered off toward the basement. Jimmy sprinted after her, foam sword clattering behind him.
“GUYS, HELP! I DON’T KNOW WHERE SHE WENT!”
Then, as if summoned by chaos itself, the power went out.
The music died. The fog machine wheezed its last breath. Someone screamed. Balto howled.
“NOBODY PANIC,” Tim bellowed, which immediately made everyone panic.
Ash grabbed Amy’s hand in the darkness. “This is very horror movie.”
“We’re vampires. We’ll be fine.”
A phone flashlight clicked on, illuminating Spider-Axel’s masked face in a way that was genuinely unsettling. “Yo, I think someone hit the breaker.”
“Or,” came a slurred voice from the ghost puddle on the floor, “the grid failed. Societal collapse. It’s happening.”
“Matt F, I swear to God—”
The front door banged open. A group of people they’d never seen before stumbled in, clearly already several drinks deep.
“YO, IS THIS THE PARTY?” one of them shouted.
“Who are you?” Karen demanded, hands on hips, devil horns slightly askew.
“Brad told us about it!”
“Who the hell is Brad?”
Nobody knew a Brad.
“Guys,” Jimmy yelled from the basement stairs. “I FOUND THE SNAKE, BUT THERE’S ALSO LIKE… PEOPLE DOWN HERE?”
More strangers had apparently discovered Axel’s basement lair and were helping themselves to his mini-fridge.
Tim cracked his knuckles. “Okay. That’s it.
”
What happened next would later be described as “The Battle of Misfit House.”
Tim, in his shirtless firefighter glory, bodily removed three people from the basement while lecturing them about boundaries and respect. Karen, powered by maternal instinct and stripper core strength, herded the remaining party crashers toward the door with a surprising amount of authority. Becca weaponized her phone’s flashlight like an interrogation lamp, demanding to know who they knew and how they got the address.
Jimmy, still holding the python, accidentally swung his foam sword and hit one of the crashers in the face. The guy yelped and retreated.
Ash and Amy, fully committed to the vampire bit, stood on the staircase and hissed dramatically. It worked better than it had any right to.
Matt F, ghost sheet tangled around his legs, tripped another crasher who was trying to grab the last of the beer.
Axel, in full Spider-Man costume, climbed onto the kitchen counter and started doing the pointing meme pose while yelling “GET OUT OF MY HOUSE” in a surprisingly convincing Queens accent.
Balto, sensing the vibes, positioned himself at the door and growled in a way that suggested his mostly wolf genetics were not decorative.
Within ten minutes, the crashers were gone.
Within fifteen, Tim found the breaker and the lights flickered back on.
The house was a disaster. Solo cups everywhere. The fog machine had leaked. Someone had stepped on Jimmy’s foam sword.
But everyone was there. The actual residents. The misfits.
Karen surveyed the damage and started laughing. “Well. That happened.”
“Did we just… defend our house?” Becca asked, slightly awed.
“We did,” Ash said, adjusting her cape. “Together.”
“That was the most white trash Avengers moment I’ve ever experienced,” Matt F slurred from the floor.
“I’m putting the snake back,” Jimmy announced.
“I’m making nachos,” Axel said, unzipping the Spider-Man mask. “Everybody in?”
They reconvened in the living room, crowding onto couches and floor space, passing around plates of poorly constructed but enthusiastically received nachos. Someone found a portable speaker. The music came back on, quieter this time.
Amy leaned into Ash, watching as Karen braided Becca’s hair, as Tim and Axel argued about whether Spider-Man could beat a Blood Elf in a fight, as Jimmy explained Python care to anyone who would listen, as Matt F finally removed the sheet and passed out on the recliner.
“I think we made the right choice,” Amy whispered.
Ash kissed her temple. “The Misfit House.”
“Long may it reign.”
Balto woofed in agreement, and somewhere in the basement, the python settled back into her heat lamp, witch hat slightly askew, wholly unbothered by the chaos of humans and their strange rituals.
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