The Feeling I've Been Here With you Before Chapter 1 1948
Title: The Feeling I've Been Here With you Before
Author: animereid27
Spoilers: Not if you been watching the last Three seasons.
Rating:T
Warning: That's a secret.
Disclaimer:I own nothing!
Summary: Annie is house-sitting for Shirley when she and Andre take the kids on vacation. On night two she begs Jeff to come keep her company because the house is super-creepy.
Authors Notes: This is from a Ficcy Sunday prompt post by crittab, who also beta it. To enhance the experiences, play Blue Moon sung by Billy Eckstine while reading the first part of the chapter.
Prologue A Prologue B
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1948
A man stepped out of his house and onto his patio; inside a party was in full swing. He ignored the sounds of Blue Moon emanating from inside his home; he was searching for something. He walked to the edge of the deck and looked into his yard. It was a clear, bright night; there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the moon hung full in the night sky; he could see his whole backyard as clear as day. Suddenly a sneeze came from the old tree house. The man smiled, he had found what he was looking for. The man walked across the yard to the tree house.
“Nora,” the man said, looking up into the tree house.
No response.
“Nora, I know your there, I heard you sneeze.”A moment passed and then the face of a young girl of about 14 looked out the window and glared down at the man.
“Pumpkin, why are you hiding in a tree and not at the party?” the man asked, smiling. “You don’t what to be rude to our guests, do you?”
“Yes, I do,” Nora said, her face as red as her hair and her eyes dulled from tears. “Father, why did they have to have their party here?” she asked, pouting.
The man, Arthur Tisdall, frowned at this. “Nora, I thought you and Jeffery were friends. I thought you’d be happy for him and would want to throw him a going away party.”
“He’s going to go to that school,” she said in a venomous sob. “He’s going to meet some tall, beautiful girl with green eyes and perfectly curled blonde hair and she’ll sing like Doris Day and he’ll fall in love with her and they will get married and we’ll never be together.”
Arthur looked up at his crying daughter.
“Well that is a possibility,” he said honestly. He heard his daughter let out a small sob. “Nora come down here, I need to talk to you about something,” he said softly.
Nora didn’t move.
“Nora, come down here now or I’ll come up,” he said sternly
This got her moving. “Fine,” she said in a huff. She climbed down the ladder and faced her father. Arthur looked over his daughter; her dress was wrinkled and dirty, her hair was already starting to lose it shape and become flat, her cheeks were damp from tears and her eyes were bloodshot.
“Oh pumpkin,” he sighed, wrapping her up in a hug. She cried softly in to his chest. When she was done, he loosened his arms around her, but still held her arms and looked down in to her eyes.
“Pumpkin, you know you’re beautiful, right?” He questioned. “You look just like your mother. Well except for your eyes.” He smiled. “No, you got those from me.” He laughed. “And I got them from my mother, and she got them from her mother.”
He caressed his daughter’s cheek.“Those big, blue, virtuous eyes. You know they’re fighting eyes, or at least that’s what my father used to say,” he said proudly. “People with our eyes are always fighting for truth and justice; we got that from your great grandmother.” He chuckled lightly. “It’s also where we got our love for high places,” he said, pointing up at the tree. “Now, Nora, one day you’re going to meet someone who’s going to look into your eyes and see how special you are and love you for it… that may be Jeffery, but it may be someone else.”
“But father, I don’t want it to be someone else,” Nora protested.
“You feel like that now, but in the future you may feel differently,” he said wisely. “That’s the thing about the future, you never know what’s going to happen and that can be scary, but if we knew everything that was going to happen, life would be boring.”
“But I’d want a boring life if I could have it with Jeffery,” she said stubbornly. “I had It all planned out, but then he got accepted to that stupid school in New York and its all for nothing.”
“A plan?” he said in false surprise. “When I was a young man I had a plan. I was determined to marry this blonde by the name of Charrisa Lorie. Now, Charrisa hated my guts but that didn’t stop me from pursuing her. I’d made a plan and I was going to fulfill it whether she liked it or not.
“I tried everything to win her over but nothing I did seemed to make a difference with her. You see she was just as stubborn as I was and she had decided to hate me, for some reason,” he said vaguely, not want to bring up the messy details of why Charrisa really hated him to his young daughter.
“After a while it became more of a game to see who would cave first. It went on like this for a year or two, before she got sick of the whole thing and decided to skip town. Now, being that I was young and foolish, I followed her. I followed her all the way to a little island off the coast of the English Channel where she eventually gave in.” He moved a stray hair from his daughters face. “And after two miserable months together, she ran off to London with a cello player. I felt so defeated that I wound up trying to drink my loss away. The next morning I woke up in my landladies’ stables with a splitting headache and a 20 dollar tab at the local pub.” He gave a dry laugh. “I was feeling mighty bad for myself… and that’s when I saw a radiant angel,” he said drawing out his words. “While she fetched me some water, I realized I knew this angel. In fact, I’d played cards with her every Sunday evening since I’d been there. She was my landladies’ young niece, a girl I’d known the whole time I was in England.”He laughed. “I had been too busy fighting with Charrisa to notice the most beautiful woman I’d ever met.” He looked up to see his wife on the patio smiling at them. “Long story short, we were married little more than a year later.” He finished his story with a proud smile.
“Now, pumpkin, what I’m trying to tell you is that we never know what fate will deal us; we just have to follow our hearts and hope for the best.” He smiled at his wife. “Now, why don’t you go with your mother and let her fix your hair and get you a new dress, so you can have a dance with Jeffery before the night ends,” he suggested warmly.
“Okay Pop,” Nora said with a big smile, feeling a little better about things. She walked over to her mother with her father a few steps behind.
All of a sudden there was a large flash of light and then a loud bang. Her mother let out the most bone chilling scream she had ever heard; it didn’t even sound human and it ran right though her.
Nora froze, she was afraid to look back. She could hear her mother’s hysteric cries for help but she didn’t move a muscle. People from the party rushed outside to see what was happening. They all stopped just a few feet in front of her. Most of them ran right back inside, while others were frozen in their tracks. Nora could smell something fowl in the air, like burned meat. “Mom must have burned the rooster again,” she thought to herself.
Jeffery came outside and ran to Nora when he saw her. “Nora, are you all right? He asked. She didn’t answer, she was just glad to be near him. He was so tall and handsome. Jeffery looked behind her at where her mother and father were. Her mother was yelling something about the lack of clouds, a look of horror spread across Jeffery’s face. Nora loved his face, with his clear blue eyes and pointy elfish nose.
Jeffery grabbed hold of Nora’s hand. “Nora, you need to come inside with me and you mustn’t look back,” he said rapidly. She didn’t understand why he was so panicked.
Nora saw men dragging her mother to the house. “It wasn’t natural, lightening doesn’t do that to a human being!” she screamed. Nora wondered where her father was and started to turn around to look for him but Jeffery stopped her. “Nora, look at me.” Nora did. She liked looking at Jeffery “You mustn’t look. What’s back there is not your father, not anymore at least,” he said with a disturbed look on his face. “Do you understand me, Nora?” he asked, looking deep in to Nora’s eyes, searching for some sort of sign of understanding.
“He has such a nice voice,” Nora noted to herself.
“Nora, I need you to understand me, I’m going to take you inside now, I need you to keep your eyes straight ahead and never look back. Can you do this, Nora?” he asked, hopefully. Nora nodded.
“Nora, just look at me,” he said as he started to walk backwards slowly. “You’re doing well,” he said reassuringly. “Just a few more steps and well be home free.”
When they reached the house, Jeffery turned away from Nora for a moment to open the door, and before he could stop her, Nora turned around.
***
2013
“Andre, could you come inside? It’s starting to get dark out and we need to finish packing,” Shirley insisted.
“Oh, sorry babe,” Andre said bashfully, having lost track of time. “I was trying to do something about this patch here.” He pointed to a patch of dirt on the otherwise perfect lawn. “I just can’t seem to get anything to grow here.”
“Well, we’ll worry about that when…” Shirley trailed off.
“Babe?” Andre asked. He snapped his fingers in front of his wife’s face. “Shirley.”
“Huh,” Shirley snapped out of her daze. For a moment she could have sworn she saw a man at the door to the observatory, but it must have just been her eyes play tricks on her. “Honey, let just go inside and worry about it later.”
***
Casa De Trobed
“Okay, this bag has all of your camera equipment,” Annie said cheerfully. She and her roommates were in the living room, making sure Troy and Abed were ready for their flight.
“Thanks Annie. We couldn’t have done this without you,” Troy said sincerely.
“Yeah, who knew that you could fit all that stuff in so little luggage?” Britta said sarcastically. Troy and Abed’s original plan to bring only camera equipment, sleeping bags, beef jerky and a tent didn’t go over too well with Annie, Shirley and Britta, who wanted their friends to not die over spring break, so they made them buy a bunch of supplies and camping gear. At first Troy and Abed they didn’t think they could fit all of that stuff in to their luggage, so Annie decided step in and help them.
“I know,” Abed said missing the sarcasm. “Where’d you learn to do that, Annie?”
“I was a Girl Scout for twelve years,” Annie explained.
“Yeah, you would be a girl scout,” Britta mumbled to herself.
“Now, I’m going to be at work when you guys are leaving, so I won’t be there to take you to the airport. Will you guys be okay?” Annie asked, concerned.
“Annie, we’re adults, I think we can get to the airport by noon,” Troy said confidently.
“No Troy, that’s when the plane leaves, you guys need to be there at ten,” Annie corrected.
Troy’s eyes bugged out. “ON A SATURDAY?!”
“Don’t worry about it Annie, I’ll make they get there on time,” Britta said, finally deciding to be helpful.
“When are you going to start house sitting for Shirley?” Abed asked, playing with one of the extra flash lights that Annie was making them bring.
Annie snatched the flash light out of his hand and put it back in the red backpack for emergencies. “Her flight leaves late Monday, but I have Sunday off so I’m going to go over then so I can help them get ready to leave and get to know the place.”
“Ugh, I’m so glad that Shirley didn’t ask me to house sit; that place creeps me out.” Britta shuddered.
“Britta, Muppets creep you out,” Annie said, frankly. Abed shook his head in disappointment.
“Okay, that show had some really disturbing moments,” Britta exclaimed.
“Britta’s right,” Troy said thoughtfully.
“What?” Annie exclaimed, Britta smiled smugly and Abed eyes started to bug out.
“No, not about the Muppets, about Shirley’s house. Muppets are the bomb.” Abed relaxed. “When I was working there on the plumbing at Shirley’s, I always felt a little uneasy, like there was someone watching me.” Troy shuddered.
“You guys are being silly. Shirley’s house is not creepy, it’s beautiful,” Annie said, logically.
“Whatever, don’t believe us. I’m going to bed. ‘Night guys,” Britta said, giving Troy a kiss before she headed to his room.
After a few silent minutes, Abed spoke again. “It would be the perfect place for a horror film to take place.”
“Abed, not you too,” Annie groaned. She didn’t want to freak herself out about Shirley’s place, especially when she was going to spend six nights alone in said house.
“Think about it. While it is beautiful, it’s also big, old and secluded. The whole place is surrounded by woods and the only way to civilization is over that bridge. Help’s already at least twenty minutes away and if something happened to the bridge, you’d be totally isolated,” Abed explained.
“Yeah, beautiful young girl going to a strange old house in the middle of the woods; it’s like Horror movie 101,” Troy agreed with his friend.
“Not to mention, a lot of classic cinema haunted houses were as breathtaking as they were sinister looking,” Abed said. He and Troy shared their secret handshake, both oblivious to Annie’s clear discomfort.
“Well as fun as this conversation is,” Annie said sarcastically, “I have work tomorrow, so I’m going to bed.” She was tired of hearing all the reasons for why the place was creepy. She got up and headed to her room. “Night, guys.”
After Annie was gone, Troy turned to his best friend/soul mate. “Hey Abed, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“We should film a horror movie at Shirley’s house.”
“Yeah.”
“Cool,” Abed said. “Cool, cool, cool.”