Halloween Event Prologue: Haunted House Set Up

--- Jon ---

“People have started arriving.” Garcia told them as they did one last maintenance test on everything. “You guys ready to open up?”

“Just about.” He nodded, turning off the various switches. “We set out the house’s paperwork?”

“Paperwork?” Garcia frowned.

“Yeah, to make sure we aren’t sued by the people running through everything.” He explained.

“Right, since we were doing a ‘soft’ run for kids I didn’t actually leave the paperwork out.” His Ma informed him, before digging through a satchel she’d thrown to the side. “Figured if I did they’d make us put an age limit and lock them out.”

“That’s fair.” He admitted, thinking about how it would suck if they had to exclude the kids from the house.

“Uh, should I be concerned that you’re leaving out liability waivers?” Garcia asked. “I mean, shouldn’t you guys just be able to leave out a sign or something saying you’re not responsible for any heart conditions or whatever of the people passing through the house?”

“Nah, that gives people a little too much warning compared to simply warning them about lawsuit stuff at the gate.” His Ma disagreed. “Which just makes us sound like rule conscious cops rather than a possibly illegal haunted house.”

“Possibly illegal?” Garcia repeated skeptically. “I know you’ve got the captain’s permission to set all of this up, so it can’t be illegal.”

“Yet.” He pointed out. “I tried to keep this one good without crossing the legal threshold again, but they might not let us do this again next year.”

Garcia stared at him for a moment. “Alright, the fact that you’re the one talking about this makes me a lot more worried about this whole thing.”

“Eh, like I said we’ve got a soft version for the kids so we should be able to tone it down if anyone tries to run an actual inspection.” His Ma assured her partner before turning to him. “Did you test the emergency shut down if we have to cover this whole thing up?”

He grimaced and made a so-so gesture with his hand. “It should work, but since it’s a one time use I didn’t want to risk testing it and not being able to reset everything.”

“Yeah, don’t want to burn the evidence before we do anything with it.” His Ma nodded in understanding.

“You know you guys are making this sound way more shady than it has to be.” Garcia sighed. “Especially given how you’re a cop and he’s… well, him.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He frowned while his Ma let out a bark of laughter.

“Trust me, he’s my kid and he may play nicer but his head is just as twisted as mine.” His Ma smirked, running a hand through his hair. “If you don’t believe just take a shot at our haunted house, half of that shit came from his twisted little mind.”

“Yeah, no. I still remember how you guys are using pig's blood in there.” Garcia grimaced.

“Come on, it’ll make you look in season rather than at work.” His Ma told her, gesturing to Garcia’s otherwise normal police uniform.

“Sorry but I’d rather not look like a dead cop.” Garcia dryly confessed. “Seems too much like tempting fate on this kind of thing.”

“Bah, that’s just being superstitious.” His Ma scoffed with a dismissive wave.

“Yeah, but it’s superstitious in a world with magic, demons, and ghost-zombies.” Garcia pointed out.

His Ma opened her mouth before closing it and admitting. “Fair.”

“Besides, we are technically on duty and not all of us can get away with being plain clothes all the time. Seriously, even when everyone else has to wear vests you don’t.” Garcia reminded her before gesturing towards him. “That kind of thing is dangerous, especially when you got a kid at home.”

“Oh, that’s because she has this M.A.D. she buys bullet proof jackets from.” He defended his Ma before pausing as he remembered something. “Though I don’t know why you don’t get like Miss Edna to enchant them to be even more durable on top of that?” (That seems the kind of thing we’d normally do.)

“I did for a while there but the downside with enchantments is that unlike M.A.D. tech, enchantments can be detected due to their residual magic. Almost got me caught once when dealing with this undercover sting where the guy turned out to be an Arcane.” His Ma explained before grimacing. “And that’s not including the bullshit Sanctuary would give me if they came across me while wearing the thing.”

“That makes sense.” He nodded, making a note to not wear anything magical when Sanctuary would be around.

“Huh… And uh, how much do those jackets run for?” Garcia asked, eyeing the jacket his Ma never took off while on duty.

“About a thousand dollars, but that’s more because of the thermal lining that makes it a cool eighty degrees in hundred degree weather.” His Ma told her. “If you can wear it without, then it's about seven hundred.”

Garcia grimaced at that. “Bit pricey.”

“Maybe but like you said I’ve got a kid at home.” His Ma reminded her. “Which reminds me. Kid, since we’re about to run the house do you want first shift as Hunter or Watcher?”

He took a moment to consider it.

As Hunter his job would be to sneak behind and around people, slowly gaslighting them to cause a growing sense of dread, before finally terrifying them into running out of the haunted house. (Which could be really fun if I brought Pix along, or maybe Noctis? I mean he didn’t want to hang out but he’s a bogeyman they’re supposed to enjoy scaring things aren’t they?)

Watcher on the other hand was all about controlling the traps through the cameras to make sure everything went off with the best timing possible, a task requiring a fair amount of skill and patience to pull off. (Though I’ll probably have to deal with any of Ma’s co-workers who happen to pass through… or have a complaint about us scaring people too much.)

“I’ll go ahead and be