Flipping Haunted Houses For Fun And Profit! "Pilot Chapter, Part 1" - The Lease Didn't Mention This…

Hey, everyone! Finally got the pilot chapter of Haunted House Flippers ready. I should be starting full-time writing of it soon, which means throwttling back on the Demesne snippets (another one this weekend, hopefully). I'd love to hear your reactions, comments and questions. Some questions I might not be able to answer, as I want to present them organically in the story, but I'll answer what I can. 

As to mood and genre, this is meant to be... what, horror-adjacent sorta-urban fantasy work comedy? The vibe of the main work is meant to be a show like Storage Wars, or one of those youtube channels about contractors building houses...? Or something like the unholy union of Cabin in The Woods (except the manipulating guys aren't assholes and they're both trying to save the college students in the cabin) and Tucker and Dale VS Evil (just loveable working class goofballs working on a house, except horror stuff keeps happening around them, but they're dealing with it).

I'll delete this note when I finalize the chapter one way or the other. Anyway, on with the pilot! 

In the middle of his first night sleeping in his new apartment, Loren Abo woke up from troubled dreams to find himself shivering violently from the cold. He gasped, arms flailing as he instinctively tried to swim out of whatever cold water he was submerged in before realizing he could breathe. Blinking, Loren hastily tried to sit up, but it felt like there was a weight on his chest pushing him down.

Even as he wondered what was going on, his soul responded to the cold he was now aware of, the heat of his magic blooming outward from his heart. It spread across his torso, which continued to shiver as his muscles continued to convulse, the feeling of fire spreading down his limbs and up his neck. He sighed in relief as the despicable chill was pushed away from him as he tried to sit up. The strange feeling of weight disappeared as he managed to get his hands under him, and Loren sat up raised a hand to summon a flame.

A small tongue of fire, neat and tapered as from a well-trimmed candle, appeared from the end of his index finger. It gave off no smoke as it bathed the room in familiar yellow light allowing him to take in the still-unfamiliar room he was in. It was of a size with some hotel rooms he and his family had stayed at over the years, although with lower ceilings, no wallpaper and no TV. The latter was still at home. Well, his parent's house.

Loren looked around, the flame he held up flickering as he reassured himself the room was still empty. There was no place to hide except…

He hurried sat up on his knees, looking around to make sure there was no one hiding over the edge of his bed, as shallow and ineffective a hiding place that may be. All he saw were the old but still serviceable linoleum tiles on the floor, looking like stained teeth in his firelight. Stumbling to his feet, bare soles on the cold tiles of the floor as chilling breezes tickled at his ankles, Loren checked the kitchenette and front door. The kitchenette still had gaps for the stove and regrigerator, and the door was still bolted shut with the chain in place.

The last place to look was the bathroom, and he swung opened the bathroom so hard the narrow plastic door hit the wall and bounced a little. There were no intruders. There was only the toilet, the small sink that was mounted to the wall, and the shower.

That was all.

Loren finally let out a sigh as he flicked the little flame upward, willing it to shed only light instead of heat as he leaned on the bathroom's doorframe, letting out a shaky breath as he tried to get himself under control, the cold air flowing over his bare feet.. A part of him desperately wanted to go home, to be back in his familiar childhood bed in his childhood room, with its familiar colors and posters hiding discreet scorchmarks where he'd accidentally singed the paint when he'd been younger.

He shook his head as he felt cold air blowing across the back of his neck. No, that was just the homesickness talking. He had his phone, he could call his parents and little sister any time if he got lonely…

For a moment, he considered doing just that. It was the middle of the night. They wouldn't appreciate having to get out of bed for a ringing phone, if they heard it at all. He needed to get back to sleep. He had more furniture to move in tomorrow, which meant commuting home to borrow the car and load it up with more of the stuff from his old room.

Sighing sleepily, he rubbed at his eyes and stepped into the bathroom, tugging down his shorts to take a piss. Cold air blew over him as he relieved himself, then moved towards the little sink to wash his hands from force of habit. The water from the faucet washed over his hands, and he flinched at the hated substance touched his skin, but it wouldn't be enough to keep him from using his magic and his hands would dry quickly.

As he washed, he couldn't help catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror. The light coming from the little tongue of fire he'd left floating outside the bathroom lit only the left side of his face, leaving him outlined in blackness and partially blocking the face of the girl standing behind him. He could feel her cold breath on his back, joining the breezes blowing around his feet.

Loren stared.

He screamed.

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In the muted heat and relative quiet of the early morning, Loren knocked tiredly on a familiar door. His bare feet were caked with dirt, small pebbles and hopefully just that, and he was still only wearing the shorts and old t-shirt he'd went to bed in. Without any money, he'd had to walk the whole way, keeping a wary eye out for dogs, muggers, keres, and any evil puddles of water out to get him.

He stood there, swaying slightly from a mix of a lack of sleep, a mild headache from using his Flame to substitute for sleep keep him awake, and the ache of his legs and feet from walking this far. For a moment, he wondered whether he'd need to knock louder—

To his relief the door opened, revealing the familiar face of his best friend. Of average height, her complexion a bit paler than his and dark of hair, Harmony Atlawan looked wide awake and puzzled as she stared at him standing pathetically outside of the house she shared with her aunt and her aunt's family. "Lor? What are you doing here?"

"Hey, Hari," he said. "Can I sleep here tonight? I think my apartment is haunted."

A resigned, knowing expression came over her face. "Ah. Come in. I'll get my stuff off the sofa while you wash your feet."

Nodding woodenly, Loren stepped inside, wiping his feet on the door mat as best as he could. "Thanks."

A blessedly warm hand patted him on the shoulder. "What are friends for? I'll be smug about you not listening to me when you wake up."

Loren nodded gratefully, and stumbled towards the bathroom to do just that…

He hesitated.

"Hari? Could you come with me?"

Harmony stopped at the threshold of the living room. "…sure."

Loren slept fitfully through what was left of the rest of the night. He'd asked Harmony to leave the lights on—he hadn't wanted to not be able to see around him—and she'd left the kitchen door open, letting the lights from there shine into the living room as she'd worked. Every breath of air on his skin made him shudder in panic, causing him to jerk upright and look around frantically. The windows had been turning blue with the predawn light before he'd finally managed to fall asleep.

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"I told you that place was haunted," Harmony said smugly several hours later after Loren had managed a few more hours of sleep and was in the middle of a very late breakfast that probably counted as brunch. "That place was far too cheap. You only rent out a place in that neighborhood for that much when there’s something seriously wrong with it, and since there weren’t any horrible smells, it had to be haunted."

“I thought you were joking,” Loren said defensively as he ate the breakfast Harmony’s Auntie Ganda had been nice enough to prepare for him before she'd gone out to the market for the week's groceries. Rice, egg, tocino, lechon sauce… that last wasn’t usual, but Auntie Ganda, bless her heart, remembered how he liked his rice.

He'd asked Harmony to turn off the electric fan for the moment. Loren didn't think he could take the feeling of breezes on his skin right now.

“Why would I have been be joking? You know where I work.”

Loren swallowed the mouthful he’d been chewing. “Don’t you work at a real estate place?”

“We’re a real estate investment company,” she corrected.

“What’s the difference?”

Harmony rolled her eyes. “A ‘real estate place’ is a realtor. They’re middlemen who help people buy and sell real estate. A real estate investment company buys properties for cheap, fixes it up, and sells or rents it for high.”

He stared at her blankly.

A sigh. “We’re house flippers.”

Oh. “Oh. Why didn’t you just say that?”

Harmony sighed again. Loren took the opportunity to eat some more. "Did they give some kind of reason for why the rent was that low?"

"Lease," Loren corrected pedantically. "They told me that the place was really hot in the summer because it was a south-facing room."

Harmony snorted. "And you believed that bullshit? This is Tawilisi, everywhere is hot in the summer."

He shrugged pathetically. "It seemed like a good deal at the time."

A sigh. "What happ—no, no, you clearly don't want to talk about it yet." Harmony shook her head. "Never mind then. Just to confirm, though. You're sure your place is haunted?"

Loren remembered cold like he was submerged in water, and shuddered. "Yes," he hissed, resisting the urge to set the back of his neck on fire.

Harmony reached across the table and put a hand on his forearm. "It's all right. You're here. I'm here. The sun is out and hot."

Despite himself, Loren shuddered. "Some magician I am. Panicking when I saw a ghost."

"That's perfectly normal." Harmony's voice was gentle and calming, a sharp contrast to her more familiar cheerful excitability. I sounded vaguely like a 'customer service' voice. "Theory is different from practice, and it's not like you expected to run into a ghost in the middle of the night. You're an alchemy-pharma grad, not a vigilant. Machismo aside, you can't expect to be able to just fight off a ghost. You took CWTS for your two semesters instead of ROTC, so you didn't go on the retreat for basic combat magic."

Loren wanted to shrug her off in what he knew was exactly the machismo she was talking about, but her hand was warm and solid and there… "What do I do now?" he moaned out. He knew the traditional way of getting rid of a ghost and-slash-or a haunted house: burn the house down and the ghost with it. Loren didn't know what a professional ghost removal went for these days, but he was willing to bet it wasn't cheap.

"Any chance you can take the easy way out and just cancel the lease?" Harmony asked.

He winced at the idea. At the time, he hadn't thought about it much since he'd had no intention of leaving the apartment early, but now the very punitive terms of the early cancellation clause came back to him. "If I cancel the lease, I still need to pay six months worth of rent."

Harmony sighed. "Assholes. They definitely knew about the place being haunted, then."

Loren scowled, impaling a piece of tocino on his fork with perhaps a bit more force than necessary. "Aren't they supposed to tell you if a property is haunted? I mean, legally?"

"In Lasablica, maybe. It depends on the principality. Here, though? Realtors aren't legally required to inform you if the property you're buying or renting is stigmatized. They'd usually tell you if you asked, because if they lie to you they can be taken to court for misrepresenting the property—maybe—but actually telling you? Not something they need to do."

"Fuck," Loren sighed, and resumed eating. "How do you know all this stuff?"

"I told you I worked at a real estate investment company, right? We specialize in rehabilitating stigmatized property."

"Stigmatized…?"

"We're haunted house flippers."

Loren stared at her. "Are you shitting me?"

"I'm being serious, Lor. Why do you think I was offering you listings when you started looking for a place to move to? Those were some of the properties we had available."

"I thought it was because you said you'd get a commission?"

"Yes, and I can't believe you'd rather give your money to some asshole who wouldn't tell you the apartment is haunted instead of your good friend! But don't worry, I forgive you."

He winced. "Sorry, but most of the listings you gave me are pretty far, and the ones that were nearby were a bit pricey."

"I'd have been able to get you a friends and family discount if you'd told me! Ten percent, easy!"

"…okay, now I wish I'd known that sooner. The big reason I went with my apartment is that it was cheaper than the listings you gave me, but if you could have gotten me ten percent off…"

"We can talk about it. For now, we need to go back to your apartment and get your stuff. If nothing else, you probably forgot to lock your door when you ran out last night."

A groan rose from Loren's throat as he realized Harmony was right. He remembered the door slamming shut behind him as he'd finally run out of the apartment, but the doorknob wasn't the kind that automatically locked when it closed, meaning the his door was open. His wallet was there, along with his phone, his laptop, his stash of strawberry-flavored vegetable oil… "Any chance the ghost will keep people from stealing my stuff?"

"Pretty good chance, actually," Harmony said thoughtfully. "I bet your neighbors all know your apartment is haunted. Someone would have needed to die for a haunting to start, unless it's a spiritual haunting instead of a ghostly one, but those are rare in buildings that are still occupied. Unless one of your neighbors is a mage and violently reckless, the ghost should act as a decent deterrent for casual thievery. See, things are looking up already!"

Loren rolled his eyes, equal parts annoyed and reassured at his friend's cheerful optimism. "Great. The ghost that drove me from the apartment I just moved into is keeping my stuff safe. How are we supposed to get past it?"

"I can handle that. I've done it before. You'll have to be quick though. Get only the important stuff. Wallet, phone, and whatever else you can carry in one trip. In and out in one go, as quick as possible."

She said it so confidently he had to stare. "Hari… you're not planning to wave your prayer beads at it, are you?"

That got a derisive snort. "No, of course not. I'm a Symbol, remember?"

Loren nodded slowly. "Yeah, but… you never told me what kind you were."

Harmony blinked. "I didn't?"

He shook his head. "I remember coming back from visiting my grandparents that summer and hearing you'd had an accident that had managed to ignite your magic, but my parents told me not to ask you about it and you never really said anything. Then we were busy with school and I was busy taking those extra classes to learn to control my flame… "

"Oh… right." For a moment, Harmony looked uncomfortable, but it was a remembered discomfort. "Yeah, learning how to get my magic to work and dealing with the mood swings it caused was… well, it took me a while." She shook her head, visibly banishing whatever memories had been summoned. "Well, today's good time to show you. We can commute to your place, I'll symbolize and hold down the ghost while you get your stuff once you're done eating."

Cold dread tried to climb up Loren's spine at that thought of walking back into that room, with that ghost, and he had to suppress and urge to let fire ignite from his skin to get rid of the feeling. He was wearing his only shirt, so unless he wanted to commute to his pare—commute home shirtless or wearing one of Harmony's shirts, no flames to make himself feel better. Under his control or not, he had to think of his magic as a fire hazard at all times, or it would be.

He took a deep breath, then another and another. Not the controlled hyperventilation he'd been taught to do to fuel his Flame with oxygen, but calming breaths. His Flame flared slightly regardless. No, he was not going to be afraid of the lingering magic of some dead person's soul. It was just a ghost. There was nothing it could do to hurt him that he couldn't deal with as long as he stayed calm and used his magic properly. He didn't need to fear its cold breath that wasn't really breath at all, only the ghost feeding on the ambient magic around it to continue to exist…

Besides, Harmony would be with him.

"Can I borrow something to cover my feet? I don't want to walk barefoot again."

Harmony gave him a thumbs up. "Sure!"

So, just to make something clear about HHF. It's not supposed to be set on Earth any more than, say, RWBY or Familiar of Zero is. Familiar terms (TV, cellphone, etc) are used as a translation convention, and so that I could cut down on the number of words I had to invent. Setting's wise, if this were an anime it would look like the street scenes of the first episode of RWBY, 'generic urban cityscape', but it's not, as can be derived from the chapter. I don't intend for there to be 'as you know' exposition dumps. Like in Demesne, if someone is familiar with magic and has no in-universe reason to explain, they won't, they'll just do it, any more than a military fiction story will explain the significance of inserting a magazine or what the slide is for.

That said, the setting is also Earth-like. Strawberries are strawberries and bread is bread, just like on Remnant/RWBY. Some lazy conventions are that way for a reason.

That being said, as this is a pilot, meant to raise interest in the work, I'll include this little Cast Profile just to help people get interested and figure out if this story is for them.

Loren Abo

• A mage who wields one of the [redacted] types of magic in this world, specifically 'Flame'. Non-traditionalists and pretentious people call it 'Pyroturgy', which most actual users think is a stupid name.

• Flame can be said to be the unholy combination of firebending, Dark Souls pyromancy, and Dresden Files wizard magic. At it's most basic, the premise is '(Magic = heat/fire), therefore (heat/fire = magic)'. The most basic manifestation is being able to manifest fire. From Flame derives Light, Life, Change and Energy. From there, things get complicated...

• he's an alchemy-pharma major, which means means he's trained to be a pharmacist who uses magic to alter and enhance medicines, increasing effectiveness, lowering severity of side effects, or just making something capable of being taken orally instead of injected.

Harmony Rianna Atlawan

• A mage who wields one of the [redacted] types of magic in this world, specifically 'Symbolism'. Of the seven kinds of Symbol, she is specifically a Symbol of [redacted]

• Symbols are basically Magical Girls and Boys, and basically have a wildcard, thematic magic. For example, Symbols of Hope and Symbols of Fear are capable of flight, because it is a concept that hope and fear are thematically connected to. Despite this, as a magic system its hardness is closer to Cosmere magic than Sailor Moon, and pretty adjacent to Madoka Magica.

• She dropped out of college to enlist in the army, but had to drop out of that as well since she couldn't take the pressure. In lieu of going back to college, she joined a family friend's real estate investment business.

• She is most definitely not an reincarnate. That would be wrong. And very silly.