The New Paranormal

by Jackson Tyler

  This was one of my finest skills. I was stealthy, excellent at sneaking. We took the left turn first.

  “Hold on,” said Roman. He unzipped his belt bag and pulled out a piece of chalk.

  “Is that a Mary Poppins fanny pack?” I said.

  “I don’t want to get lost,” said Roman.

  “Don’t make it too obvious. I don’t want to get found.”

  Roman marked the wall subtly. The brief meeting of chalk and concrete made a horrible screech. I hated chalk. Not only the sound of it, but the powdery texture on my hands made my skin crawl. I shuddered. Even seeing it brought on that sensation.

  “What don’t you have in that bag of yours?” I asked as Roman put the chalk back in place

  “Heroin,” he said.

  At the look on my face, he cracked a small smile. “I’m sorry. That was a joke.”

  “I know. I was surprised you made a joke, Serious Guy.”

  “I have my moments.”

  As much as I hated the sound, I was glad for Roman’s chalk, because all the dark halls in here looked the same, and I was starting to lose my bearings. We broke into a couple of storage rooms, but all we found were old electronics and some broken chairs. The Cressley wasn’t big on reusing or recycling.

  We eventually stumbled on a door with a window in it. It was one of those old windows with two sheets of glass and chicken wire in the middle. It was the kind of window that made you feel locked in.

  Inside, I spotted some furniture covered with white sheets.

  “Look,” I hissed at Roman. “There’s a whole bunch of ghosts in there.”

  He was by my side in a flash, his face alarmed.

  I grinned at him when he turned that glare on me.

  “Those aren’t ghosts,” he said. “Those are sheets.”

  “That’s the same thing, right?”

  “Isaac, take this seriously.”

  “Why? You’ve never been concerned about ghostie stuff down here before, right? I’m just having some fun.”

  “You’re incorrigible,” he said, but I noticed the corners of his lips turning into a smile.

  “And proud of it.”

  “I’m not worried about ghosts right now,” he said. “Kyle is at the front desk now, but if we don’t get this done quickly enough, Ben’s shift will start. I don’t want him to catch us.”

  Now that was a concern. I peered into the room of white sheets. It was bigger than any of the other areas we’d found down here. Who knew a huge basement could be so cramped?

  I used my sleeve to wipe the dust away from this side of the window and get a better look.

  “Does it look like there are boxes in the corner of that room to you?” I said, stepping back and deferring to Roman. I could see shapes, but detail was hard to pick through the glass.

  He had a look for himself. “Could be. Could be what we’re looking for.”

  I crouched to pick the lock. Roman shifted from foot to foot and glanced over his shoulder, gritting his teeth. He was anxious about getting caught and kicked out of the Cressley for good, but he needn’t have been. I was good at what I did.

  This lock was slightly harder to pick than the one letting us into the basement — it was stiffer, less used — but I managed to loosen it within a few minutes. “And we’re in.”

  We slipped quietly into the room. A cloud of dust wafted over us and caught in my lungs, nearly making me cough. I suppressed it. The perfume of age was strong in this room. No one had cared to see what was in storage for a long time.

  I whipped a sheet off a bedside table, setting another dust storm free. This must have been furniture from before the Cressley ‘upgraded’.

  It was pure vintage. If I had the resources to steal this unused furniture, I knew I could sell it for a good price. But I could hardly lug an armoire out of the basement of the Cressley without being noticed.

  We weren’t here to look at furniture. We were here to look at clues.

  “Those are definitely boxes.” Roman pointed across the room.

  “Let’s hope they’re full of files.” I trotted across the room.

  Jackpot.

  Roman picked up the box on top of the pile and set it on a table next to us. I tried to repress another dust-induced sneeze, but this one was too powerful. Even though I pinched my nose, the sneeze was violently loud.

  “Shh,” said Roman.

  “It was a sneeze,” I protested.

  “Look,” said Roman. He pulled a thick, leather-bound book out of the box. Underneath that book were dozens of identical books. “These are the old guest books. This will tell us who was on the fourteenth floor when- Oh my god, Isaac! This is amazing.” His eyes sparkled like he was a child on Christmas morning.

  “I told you we needed to come down here,” I said. “Every good ghost investigation has to go into the basement.”

  Roman and I each took one of the books and flipped through the stale pages, trying to find dates that lined up with the murders and potential witnesses. I wasn’t much of a reader these days, but I loved the smell of old books. Reading had been my childhood solace. Books held me together when I was stuck with my family, and when I was on my own, second-hand novels were one of the few forms of entertainment I could afford. There was nothing like breathing in a different world for a few hours.

  I craved that escape, where I knew there would be happy endings for the good guys, and the villains would be satisfyingly defeated. It was simple in fiction. I had no idea if I would get a happy ending — I didn’t even know if I was a good guy.

  I felt like a character in one of those books, searching a dingy basement for clues about a murder mystery. How strange a turn my life had taken.

  I sat cross-legged on the floor and leaned against a dusty sheet draped over a chair. I had found the guest book for 1978, and now I was searching for Barbara or her husband’s name.

  “We should get photos of these pages,” I said. I pulled out my phone to take a snap. “We can’t lug these books around.”

  “Good thinking.” Roman’s smile was wide and bright, sparkling in the dark room. It enchanted me.

  It took about forty-five minutes of page-flipping and photo-taking before we’d gathered all the photos we needed.

  “Do you think this will be useful?” I asked.

  “We have names and signatures of people who visited around the times of the murders. I think this could be very useful.”

  With a shiver of excitement, I realized I agreed with him. We were doing more than hunting ghosts — we were trying to solve a decades-old murder mystery. I loved a good challenge.

  “We should go now,” said Roman. He got to his feet. “We don’t want to push our luck.”

  “Maybe you should sweep the room with your EMF meter first,” I said. “See if anything gives you a hit. If the victim’s rings are here…”

  I couldn’t believe myself. I was talking about EMF meters as though they meant anything, I was making suggestions about this paranormal investigation, and I was sneaking around in a basement with a sexy ghost hunter. I was invested in this mystery.

  I hung near Roman’s side as he paced the room with his EMF meter. I wasn’t exactly scared, but he had the flashlight, and I didn’t want to be alone in the dark in this creepy storeroom.

  He was a fast walker, moving in strong, determined strides. I trotted to match his pace.

  “There’s nothing too unusual,” he mused. “Nothing that-”

  Suddenly, we heard a voice that definitely didn’t belong to either of us, coming from the corridor outside.

  “Shit,” I said under my breath.

  Roman turned off his flashlight. I ducked to the ground so that if anyone peered through the window, they wouldn’t see me. Roman followed suit.

  “No one will be coming in,” I reassured him, more to logic myself out of paranoia than to soothe him. “This room is barely used.”

  “You’re right,” said Roman. But his voice was tight. He anticipa
ted danger.

  No one would come in here, though. Right?

  Wrong.

  The door to the storage room creaked open on its rusty hinges.

  “We need to hide,” hissed Roman.

  I glanced around desperately. I was an expert hider. “Under here.”

  As inconspicuously as possible, I lifted a sheet draped over a nearby dresser, and I slid into the small gap under the vanity and between the drawers on either side.

  “Come in,” I said.

  Roman looked doubtful that he’d fit, but as footsteps began tapping across the room, like the tick of a bomb, he had no option.

  The only way we could contort ourselves to fit was with me in Roman’s lap. I’d dreamed of sitting here many times, but in my dreams, we were alone, undressed, and in bed.

  Tap. Tap. Tap. The footsteps echoed heavily.

  “Who’s in here?” yelled a familiar voice. Lance.

  It figured he’d spent time in the basement. As a maintenance worker, surely there were things for him to look at in the basement. But why was he in this room? None of this old furniture, or any of the old records, needed maintaining.

  “How did he know we were in here?” I whispered.

  “Shh,” Roman whispered back.

  His shallow, anxious breaths were hot on the back of my neck. His body was a space heater, and if we were in any other situation, I would savor being so close to him.

  Sometimes, when adrenaline pumped through my body, I got horny. Little things caused it. Rushing to get somewhere on time. Running from the cops. Back in the old days, a good robbery would get the juices pumping. It was like my whole body flooded with sensation when the adrenaline hit. I supposed it was the heat of the moment. My body went into fight, flight, and fuck mode all at once. An old instinct for survival perhaps?

  Who knew the explanation. All I knew was that I was sitting on Roman’s lap, we were hiding from a harmless maintenance worker while trying to solve a cold murder case, and I was getting hard. I gritted my teeth and tried to think of unsexy things, but with Roman’s solid body right under me, my brain wouldn’t go anywhere unsexy. In fact, the harder I tried to repress it, the more sexy things I thought of. I shifted my weight slightly — my knee was cramping — and he gasped.

  “What the hell is this?” said Lance.

  I held my breath. My body was aroused, but my thoughts were pure fear. It was silly for me to be so afraid. There was nothing to be frightened of. The worst thing that could happen was a ban from the Cressley hotel, and maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. If I found somewhere else to live, my life could go back to normal. I could stop hunting ghosts, stop pining over a man who clearly was not interested in anyone with a corporeal form, stop trying to solve a murder. I could go on a date with the guy Olivia wanted to set me up with and get laid for the first time since I’d gotten back to Seattle. Maybe if I did get laid, I would stop being so addled by Roman. Maybe I was pent up and horny. It wouldn’t have been the first time I’d done something misguided for someone I was attracted to. I’d experimented with suburbia for Sasha.

  And honestly, ghost hunting was more up my alley than living in the suburbs.

  The room was so quiet that I heard the hollow ringing sound of Lance making a phone call. Roman was practically trembling underneath me.

  “Hello?” a familiar voice came through the tinny phone speakers. Ben. I reached down to grab Roman’s hand.

  “Hey, Ben. I think we have a pest problem,” Lance said.

  I craned my neck to look at Roman. His eyes were wide, afraid.

  A short pause. The speakers crackled. I couldn’t hear anything Ben was saying.

  “No, nothing like that. I think Roman came down here.”

  A longer pause.

  “I know. Kyle must have given him the key.

  “He didn’t!” Roman hissed in my ear.

  It was my turn to shush him.

  “I noticed the door was slightly open,” Lance was saying.

  I could have sworn I’d closed the door behind me when I came in. There was another long, drawn-out pause.

  “Yeah, it’s gotta be him. I don’t know if he’s still here.”

  Pause. Crackle.

  I felt Roman’s impressive muscles tense under me, and another wave of lust flooded me. This was a lot of feelings all at once. Was Roman feeling the same way? Or were his thoughts, like his fanny pack, perfectly organized?

  “Yeah, things have definitely been moved,” Lance was saying. “I think he got to the guest logs.”

  Pause.

  “See you soon,” said Lance.

  I had hoped he would leave after calling Ben, but no. Ben was coming down here.

  Time stretched on forever. Lance paced heavily on the opposite side of the room to us. We were all waiting for Ben.

  I turned my neck to chance a glance at Roman.

  Big mistake. I fell into his eyes. My vision had adjusted to the dim light. I noticed every detail of Roman’s face. His pupils were flared, dilated so wide you could barely see the ring of brown around them. His jaw was clenched, the muscles in his neck taut. He was gorgeous, and he was terrified.

  I wanted to soothe him, and I wanted to kiss him. His breath was already on my lips; I wanted it in my lungs. I wanted to seal this gap between us permanently. We were so close, but we were miles apart. I had to sit here in torment.

  I looked straight ahead again, trying to compose myself.

  It didn’t work. I was thinking about Roman when another set of footsteps joined us in the room. I held my breath. Lance was annoying, but Ben scared me. He reminded me of bullies from my past. My hackles instinctively raised whenever I was near him. I wished we could run for it, but there was only one door in this room, and I wasn’t going to dash past those two to get to it.

  “Do you think he’s still in here?” asked Ben.

  I shook my head as though to influence Lance’s response.

  “I have no idea. I haven’t heard anything.”

  “Hmm. What was he looking at?”

  “It looks like old guest books.”

  “His boyfriend asked me about old guests here.”

  Two sets of footsteps crossed the room toward the boxes. They were far enough away from us I wasn’t scared, exactly. But they were much too close for comfort. Roman was practically vibrating behind me. I wished he wouldn’t, because a part of me thought it felt damn good.

  It was too quiet in here. How had Lance and Ben not heard my breath yet, or my pounding heart?

  “These logs are from when murders were happening,” Ben said. I made out the dry flip of paper as he perused one of the books for himself. “Go figure.”

  “That guy is so creepy.”

  Ben laughed. “Tell me about it. And then he goes and fucks a guest. Unbelievable.”

  “I have to feel sorry for the guy in 1405,” said Lance. “What a sucker.”

  Excuse him. I was not a sucker. I was as far from a sucker as you could be.

  “Don’t talk to me about that bullshit,” said Ben. “We gotta do something about him hanging around here. Maybe we could call the cops and tell them he’s unstable.”

  I didn’t realize Roman could get any tenser, but somehow he managed. I squeezed his knee, hopefully comfortingly, although I doubted anything could soothe him.

  “Nah, the boyfriend will vouch for him.”

  “I know a cop who won’t care what his boyfriend says-”

  “Dude. No.” Lance actually sounded offended by Ben’s suggestion. “We just want him to go away.”

  “We can’t have this place becoming a haunted attraction,” said Ben. “I don’t get paid enough for that. If people start saying this place is haunted, we’re going to be inundated by loons.”

  So that was why these two hated Roman so much. They didn’t want their jobs to get too hard. Man, wages needed to go up.

  “Let’s just go,” said Lance. “What can he find, anyway? It’s not like there are actually any gh
osts here.”

  I was pleased when they finally left, the door closing behind them with a clunk.

  Roman made to move.

  “Dude, no,” I whispered. “They could be lying in wait.”

  “So how long do we stay here?”

  “Until my instincts think it’s safe.”

  Roman frowned. “What do we do until then?”

  We were close, we were finally alone, and we had nowhere to be for a while. I could think of plenty of things to do. “We wait.”

  I didn’t know how long to give it until I could be sure we were safe. I twisted my body around so that I was looking at Roman and forgot what I was planning to say to his face. I was too distracted by how handsome he was, from his thick, furrowed eyebrows to his ever-clenched jaw. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.

  “Isaac,” he murmured. “You’re very close.”

  My heart skipped a beat. “Yeah, I am.”

  The urge to breach the small gap between us was overwhelming. It was much too cramped for two men to sit under this dresser, but if I melted into him, that discomfort would breeze right away.

  “I want to kiss you,” I told him. I didn’t mean to say it, didn’t want to make him uncomfortable, but the words spilled out before I could stop them.

  He nodded minutely.

  “Can I kiss you?”

  His nod was more decisive this time.

  I melted into the sensation as his lips yielded in response to mine. I shuddered a gasp, but I didn’t break the kiss. I was afraid that if I did, I’d never get another chance. We had pretended to kiss before, but there was no audience this was time. This was real.

  I kissed Roman, hungry and desperate for his affection. My cock was rapidly going from semi-erect to diamond-hard, and Roman’s cargo pants weren’t disguising his own erection.

  If I could have chosen when this would happen, I definitely wouldn’t have picked now. Cramped under a dresser. Locked in a storage room.

  But my life never went how I expected, and if this was how I could kiss Roman, this was how I was going to kiss Roman. I would kiss him anywhere, any way.

  I was so wrapped up in our kiss that I had no idea how long it lasted. The pound of my heart was becoming faster, louder, more erratic. I wanted nothing more than to uncover every inch of Roman’s body, to kiss his skin all over and lavish him with attention.