Back at Sarah’s house, the group trickled in like shell-shocked soldiers returning from battle. The living room still looked like a crime scene: the colpsed couch y like a corpse nobody had bothered to cover, surrounded by snack wrappers, textbooks, and Ravi’s crushed sense of dignity.

  Sarah sighed and plopped down onto the floor with the grace of someone who had emotionally checked out around Couch #3.

  “I’m not buying a new one,” she decred.

  Cami stared at her like she’d grown a second head. “Still? After the rats?”

  “It goes against college culture,” Sarah said stubbornly. “A brand-new couch would feel… fake. Like putting a diamond ring on a troll doll. This house is all second-hand. A new couch would ruin the vibe.”

  “The vibe?” Ravi said, eyes wide. “The vibe is mildew, and emotional damage!”

  “It’s authenticity!” Sarah argued. “College is supposed to be grimy. That’s how you know it’s real. I don’t want to be called a faker by someone.”

  “But they would need to care enough to come into your house first,” protested Bharath

  “Still. I would know.”

  “She right dawg… you don’t wanna be known as a faker,” opined Tyrel sagely.

  “Okay, so then what?” Marisol asked, flopping onto a beanbag. “Back to curbside roulette?”

  Tyrel grinned. “Nope. Time to embrace the future, baby. Craigslist.”

  Bharath frowned. “That sounds like a scam. Why does Craig get to make the list?”

  “Anyone can add to the list. Stop clowin’ fool,” said Tyrel rolling his eyes.

  “Yea, but it’s still called Craig’s list. Why not call it everyone’s list,” protested Bharath stubbornly.

  “It is a scam,” Ravi said ftly. “A digital flea market where murderers sell cursed furniture for gas money.”

  “Craigslist is the peak of American innovation,” Tyrel decred proudly. “It’s the internet, but sketchy. Like God intended.”

  “You can’t even tell if people are legit,” Jorge added. “How do you know they’re not lying?”

  Tyrel shrugged. “You just trust your gut.”

  “In Bolivia,” Jorge said, “we verify everything through the abue network first. Want to rent a house? Call someone’s grandma. Want to date someone? Grandma. Want to buy furniture? Three grandmas minimum. Cross-checked. Triple stamped.”

  “And here?” Ravi gestured at the glowing CRT monitor hooked to Sarah’s bulky desktop tower. “You just email some random ‘JDog420’ and hope they don’t own a basement with chains in it?”

  “That’s part of the charm,” Sarah said brightly, already typing. “Danger adds fvor.”

  “Fvor?!” Bharath squeaked.

  After a few minutes of browsing blurry JPEGs and descriptions that ranged from “lightly used” to “only one suspicious stain,” they found it.

  “Couch - 20 - must pick up today. Great condition. No weird smells.”

  “‘No weird smells’ is a red fg,” Cami muttered. “It means it smells weird.”

  “Too te,” Sarah said, grabbing her jacket. “We’re going.”

  The house stood at the end of a crooked cul-de-sac, hunched beneath a canopy of overgrown trees like it was trying to hide from the zoning department. The siding was a shade of pale despair, the porch creaked audibly as the truck approached, and the mailbox leaned at a suspicious 45 degree angle, like it had seen too much.

  A creepy pstic Santa grinned from the porch… in April.

  Tyrel pulled into the driveway slowly. The truck made an uneasy groan.

  Cami took one look and said, “Nope. I’m out. This is where kids go missing in movies.”

  “We’re gonna die,” Ravi whispered. “I can feel it in my chakras.”

  “Chakras can’t be felt. They just are,” Bharath said dryly.

  “They’re also screaming, okay?!”

  “I think it’s indigestion”

  The rest of the crew sat frozen, staring at the house like it might blink.

  Sarah, ever the bold white girl in the horror film, hopped out of the truck without a care in the world. “You guys are such drama queens. It’s fine. When has anything bad ever happened at a pce like this?”

  “Do you never watch movies?” excimed Ravi, horrified!

  “Nothing about this is fine,” Jorge muttered. “There’s tinfoil on the windows and that garden gnome is definitely holding a knife.”

  “That’s a spatu,” Marisol said.

  “Same energy,” Jorge replied.

  Tyrel climbed out after Sarah, grinning. “Y’all worry too much. We got three Latinos and two Indians. You’re the diversity shield. Ain’t no serial killer touching us.”

  “That’s not how it works!” Jorge hissed. “That’s how we die first! This is why I keep telling all of you to watch more Wes Craven movies!”

  The front door creaked open before anyone could respond.

  Out stepped a man-mid-40s, balding, pale like he hadn’t seen sunlight since Clinton’s first term. He wore socks with sandals, and a faded Looney Tunes tie-dye T-shirt that said “Don’t Have a Cow, Man.”

  He smiled the way spiders do when you walk into their web.

  “You here for the couch?” he asked, voice raspy, like it had been dug out of gravel.

  “Yup,” Sarah said, unfazed.

  “It’s in the basement.”

  He held the door open wider.

  “Why is it never in the front?” Ravi whispered. “Why can’t couches just be normal and sit in the living room like God intended?”

  “Because it’s a trap,” Jorge said. “This is how organ harvesting starts. He’s gonna put our kidneys in a freezer and name them after cartoon characters. Hold me Cami! This white girl is going to get us killed!”

  “It’s just a couch, guys,” Sarah called from the porch. “Be cool.”

  “Cool?” Ravi wheezed. “The house has a rotary phone, Sarah. A ROTARY. PHONE.”

  But they followed her anyway. Because peer pressure is more powerful than survival instincts.

  The interior was… worse.

  Faded wallpaper from the Nixon era. A cuckoo clock that ticked even though it had no hands. There was a porcein doll in every corner-each one staring directly at Ravi.

  “Why are they all facing me?” he whispered.

  “Because they know,” Bharath said grimly.

  “Couch’s down here,” the man said, gesturing to a dark, narrow staircase that smelled like mothballs and regret.

  “We’re good,” Jorge said, turning to leave. “We’ll just… we’ll buy a beanbag.”

  Tyrel was already halfway down. “Come on, y’all. Stop acting like this is The Bir Witch IKEA.”

  At the bottom of the stairs, the basement unfolded like a serial killer’s notice board: wood paneling, fluorescent lights flickering, a water heater making whale noises in the corner, and yes - a beige couch.

  Too beige.

  Too clean.

  As if it had witnessed something and was keeping secrets.

  “See?” the man said, from next to the couch. “Good shape. Firm. Barely used. You should all come closer…”

  At the top of the stairs, Sarah finally stopped ughing.

  “Wait…” she said, brow furrowing. “Why does he have a closet full of candles and mannequin legs?”

  Tyrel froze beside her. “And why is there a pentagram painted under the couch?! That’s not part of the upholstery…”

  Then came the voice.

  “Wait, wait! Let me just grab my ritual mask and hockey stick, then you can all come down to the basement. I read in the Serial Killer digest st month that the victims prefer it when you are upfront to them about your intentions. It makes them feel special. What do you think?”

  He smiled again. This time, with gums.

  Bharath, inexplicably calm for half a second, looked at the man and asked, “Excuse me sir, what exactly do you mean by - OH MY GOD RUN MARISOL,” and bolted after Marisol. He grabbed Marisol’s wrist like they were escaping a war zone. “DON’T LOOK BACK! IF ANYTHING MOVES - KICK IT!”

  Ravi bolted. “NOPE NOPE NOPE!” he shouted, knocking over a mp, two porcein cats, and what might have been a taxidermied squirrel with lipstick.

  Cami leapt over a pile of old newspapers like a telenove heroine escaping a dramatic plot twist. “I didn’t survive Catholic school in Miami to die like this! I’M TOO YOUNG TO BE FEATURED ON UNSOLVED MYSTERIES!”

  Jorge, already halfway up the stairs, shouted, “SANTA MARíA DE LAS ALMOHADAS MALDITAS!”

  Even Tyrel and Sarah - who had up until now been giggle-level brave-finally registered the danger. That was finally enough even for the white kids. Tyrel and Sarah screamed in unison.

  Tyrel screamed, “ABORT! ABORT! DEFCON 5 PEOPLE! RUNRUNRUNRUNRUN!” grabbing Sarah’s hand like they were escaping from Jurassic Park.

  Cami yelled, “DEFCON 1 you idiota. DEFCON 5 is normal.”

  Sarah shrieked, “YOU SAID THIS WAS PROGRESS!”

  Tyrel gasped, “IT WAS! UNTIL HE MENTIONED SERIAL KILLER DIGESTS, SARAH!”

  Ravi flung a mp behind him like it was a grenade. “I KNEW THIS WAS A BAD IDEA! I SMELL BLEACH AND DESPAIR!”

  They all exploded out the front door like human confetti.

  Bharath shoved it open with his shoulder, Ravi did a barrel roll across the wn, Jorge tripped over the fmingo pnter and kept running, Marisol yelled “LORD TAKE THE WHEEL” and bolted, and Sarah, to her credit, hurdled the porch railing like an Olympic sprinter.

  They dove into Tyrel’s truck like it was the Ark of the Covenant, piling on top of each other in a heap of limbs, shrieks, and desperation.

  “GO GO GO!” Ravi shouted from the passenger side, already halfway into the cab.

  Cami dove into the truck bed like it was a foxhole. Jorge pushed her over and climbed in right after.

  Marisol flung herself across the back seat while Bharath smmed the door behind them.

  Tyrel floored the truck in reverse with the panic of a man who had seen his own obituary. The tires screeched, the engine coughed, and the truck lurched like it, too, wanted to escape this unholy Craigslist ritual.

  The man stepped out onto the porch, panting.

  “HEY! At least wait till I grab the mask and knife! Don’t be so rude! It's vintage! I got it from a guy in Reno who swears it has seen four murders!”

  In the rearview mirror, the man stood barefoot on the wn, shaking his fist in cssic vilin fashion.

  “DARN KIDS! I would’ve gotten away with it too if it weren’t for your suspicious brown friends!”

  Everyone gasped.

  Tyrel floored it. Gravel sprayed. The truck tore down the street like it was fleeing a zombie apocalypse.

  In the silence that followed, Ravi clutched the dashboard. “DID HE JUST SCOOBY-DOO VILLAIN US?”

  Tyrel was pale. “Bro said ritual mask. That’s like-code red.”

  Sarah was still catching her breath. “I-I don’t know what part of Craigslist that was, but it wasn’t furniture.”

  “You guys almost sacrificed us to a DIY exorcist,” Jorge growled. “Because you two thought a twenty-dolr couch was worth death.”

  “MY WHOLE LIFE FLASHED BEFORE MY EYES!” Cami yelled, still clutching her chest. “And most of it was in Spanish!”

  “Hey, now,” Tyrel said, gncing back. “Nobody got murdered. That’s what matters.”

  “Y’all are being dramatic,” Sarah added, adjusting her ponytail. “It was fine. Just some creepy… ritualistic… hobbyist energy.”

  “You dragged five brown people into a horror movie house,” Cami snapped. “Because you thought our menin would absorb the risk!”

  “I knew it,” Jorge muttered. “We were the sacrificial diversity offering.”

  Ravi pointed at Sarah and Tyrel. “From now on, you two go in first. Every time. You want a couch? You chase the demons.”

  Tyrel shrugged. “Still worth it. This is the real college experience.”

  Sarah grinned. “Yeah. Cursed couches, Craigslist creeps, and car chases. It's basically... orientation week.”

  “I swear to Vishnu,” Bharath said from the passenger seat, voice ice-cold, “the next person who says the word ‘authentic’ is pushed onto the road. Even if it’s you Sarah”.

  There was a long pause after Bharath’s threat.

  They sat in silence for a full minute. Just breathing. Shaking. Nobody ughed. Not yet.

  Then Sarah- dusty, scraped, and mascara-smudged-let out a soft snort.

  “We really almost died for a couch.”

  And like that, the tension snapped.

  They started ughing. Broken, grateful, ridiculous ughter.

  Even Sarah gave a sheepish nod. “Okay. Okay. You were right. Craigslist was...a mistake.”

  “Craigslist was a death wish,” Cami snapped. “Next time I want to flirt with the afterlife, I’ll call my ex-boyfriend in Fort Lauderdale.”

  Then to everyone’s shock and delight Sarah said softly, “I guess, we could just… buy a new one.”

  A collective gasp rippled through the truck.

  “You what now?” Ravi said, peeking out from under a bnket like a trauma survivor.

  “I mean,” Sarah sighed, “maybe this whole second-hand scavenger hunt thing has gone too far. We were almost… sacrificed. And that couch had eyes, I swear.”

  “I told you!” Cami shrieked, jabbing a finger at her. “You only gave in because it stopped being quirky and started being pagan!”

  “I vote we buy new,” Marisol said. “Like, imported this week from China kind of new. Fresh foam. Sealed in pstic. No squirrel ancestry.”

  “Okay, but I still want it to feel college,” Sarah said. “I don’t want a thousand-dolr sectional that looks like it belongs to a divorced dentist.”

  “No one here has a thousand dolrs,” Jorge deadpanned.

  “But we can all chip in,” Marisol offered, pulling a crumpled ten-dolr bill from her bra like a magician. “We’ve been through war, girl. You deserve comfort.”

  “Yeah,” Bharath said, reaching into his wallet. “I’ll throw in a hundred if it guarantees I never have to see another basement again.”

  “I have 100 as well,” Ravi decred. “And a Blockbuster card I could never have used again had that maniac caught us.”

  “Count me in for 50,” Cami added. “And I’m not even sitting on it. I’m sitting on principle.”

  Jorge handed over a few tens. “I will personally burn that Craigslist address off the map if it stops haunting my dreams.”

  Tyrel spped down a sweaty twenty. “Let’s go corporate, baby. Let’s sell out. Let’s go to everyone’s favorite shopping destination -”

  “SUPER WALMART.”