by Sean Michael
Will stroked MacGregor’s hair, the strands surprisingly soft. Not a hair-product guy, then.
He sat on the bed, but instead of putting MacGregor down, he kept holding on. MacGregor sighed and leaned in hard, resting on him like they were friends. Hell, like they’d known each other way more than a day.
Will didn’t know what the fuck was going on, and that made him grumpy. He wasn’t sure why Jason had thought it would be a good idea for him of all people to be coddling MacGregor. This whole thing was crazy. Starting with MacGregor needing babysitting. Passing out from questions about a basement. That wasn’t normal. Blaine was right. Something was working MacGregor, manipulating him.
“You’ve got a real bug up your ass about the basement, bud. I’m sure we’re going to find something super scary is living down there that’s going to freak us all out. I mean, that’s a serious padlock on that door.”
Or maybe it was just a basement. Maybe MacGregor was insane. It was totally possible.
Hell, for all he knew, MacGregor had spent the night rearranging the books and the dishes in the kitchen. He could have faked the rumbling cabinets by shaking them himself while pretending to hold them down. The flying dish… well… MacGregor was a smart guy. Will was sure he could have rigged something up to make a bowl or two shoot across the room.
Yeah, that was probably it. Nothing scary here. Just some pranks. A way for Mr. Librarian to get some attention. He’d bet that’s what this was. Some smart, lonely guy coming up with an imaginative way to get attention. Get himself on TV. Will squeezed MacGregor against his chest, his thoughts all chasing each other as he worked to convince himself that was what was going on here.
Damn, it was quiet. Like, really quiet. He could barely hear any breathing sounds from MacGregor, though he checked, watching until he could make out the rise and fall of the man’s chest. Why was he still holding MacGregor when the bed was right here? How stupid was he being right now? God, what was wrong with him?
He stood and turned, carefully set MacGregor down on the bed. Worry clutched at him suddenly, and he covered MacGregor with the blanket that had been folded at the foot of the bed as if that would protect him. Protect him from what, Will couldn’t say.
And how long was MacGregor going to be out? Where the hell were the guys?
He reached out, shaking Payne gently. Come on, man. Wake up.
Seriously, this wasn’t natural. He was going to text the guys, see if they thought it made sense to take Payne to the hospital.
He’s still out take to hospital?
He sat on the edge of the bed, jiggling his leg as he waited for an answer. None came.
Hello?
He got up and paced around the room, peeking into the bathroom. It all looked very nice and normal. What was taking Jason so long to get back to him?
Poke. He waited a few more minutes then nudged Jason again. Poke.
The fuck? If they were going to ignore him, he was going to go downstairs and get them. He took one last look at Payne, then held his hand in front of the guy’s mouth, only taking his next breath when he felt warm air against his palm. Okay, Payne was fine. Well, still unconscious, so not exactly fine, but alive at least.
Will went to the door, turned the handle, and pulled the door… not open. Frowning, Will tried again. Then again. He put his foot on the wall next to the door, turned the handle, and pulled as hard as he could. The fucker didn’t budge.
Banging on the door with two fists, he called out, “Guys! Jason! Darnell! Blaine! Flynn! Come on, guys. This isn’t funny.”
He jiggled the handle, trying to see if the door was locked, dammit. Though why they’d lock him and Payne in, he didn’t know. He leaned down and peered through the keyhole, expecting to find it blocked with the key.
What he didn’t expect was a shiny black eye, full of malice, staring at him. He stumbled backward. “Shit! Fuck!”
Oh God. He sat on the bed and shook his head. Okay. Okay. He was letting his imagination get away from him. Seriously. An eye? Some malevolent thing trying to see in? He was losing it. Next thing he knew, he’d be the one passed out. He took a few breaths and went back to the door, walking as casually as possible. He grabbed the door handle in one hand and turned it, then tugged. And the fucking door still wouldn’t budge. So that part was not his imagination.
He’d look through the keyhole again. What he’d thought was an eye was probably the bottom of the key. It was one of those old-fashioned locks that would take an equally old-fashioned key, and those had rounded ends. And as keyed up—pun not intended—as he was, thanks to the guys locking him in here and not answering his texts, he’d let his imagination get away from him.
Bending, he looked through the keyhole again. Fuck him raw, that was definitely a beady little eyeball, and it was definitely not a happy little eyeball. The iris, outlined in a thin oval of white, was so dark he couldn’t distinguish the pupil. He stared for a moment longer, telling himself his mind was playing tricks on him. Then it blinked.
He fell back with a cry. “Fuck!”
Okay. Okay. He was not looking through that keyhole again. That had not been his imagination, and the eyeball had not been friendly—quite the opposite in fact. He didn’t know what the fuck was going on, but he couldn’t say he liked it.
He went back to the bed.
“Dude. Payne. You got to wake up.” He started tapping Payne’s cheeks. “This situation is fucked up, and you refusing to wake up is making it even more creepy. So just wake up.” He hit Payne’s cheeks a little harder, then pinched Payne’s right hip.
“Ouch!” Payne sat up, cracking their foreheads together.
“Fuck!” Will stumbled back, his hand going to his head. Shit, that had hurt. Payne had a fucking hard head. Not that anyone would be surprised about that.
“Ow. Ow, ow, ow. Why’d you bang my head?” Payne glared at him, and as annoyed as he might be, he had nothing on the anger in the keyhole eye.
“I did not bang your head. You banged mine.” Will hadn’t moved—Payne was the one who’d rammed into him.
“I didn’t either! How did I get in here?” Payne demanded.
“You fainted.”
“I’ve never fainted before in my whole life.” Payne looked affronted.
“Yeah, well, I think you had help.” Help from some supernatural badass with a creepy eye, it seemed.
Payne folded his arms around his chest. “This is too weird, man. Seriously.”
“I know. Kind of what we do, though, you know? The weird and crazy. Ghosts riding people, needing wrongs righted, and all that shit.” They weren’t that well versed in it, though, and this was creepier than the old hospital had been. And that was saying something.
“I haven’t done anything wrong. Nothing serious. I mean, I stole a candy bar when I was six, but I took it back and apologized….” Payne looked lost.
“Hey, dude. This isn’t even about you, you know? You’re just the guy on hand. Possibly your grandmother’s ghost is here specifically to protect you, but the evil mother who made you faint and who flung those bowls around? That one isn’t because of anything you did. Blaine said it felt old.” Will paced from the bed to the door and back to the bed. Should he mention the black beady eyes looking at him through the keyhole? Probably better not to. Payne was already on edge.
Payne looked around and frowned. “Where is everyone else?”
“I have no clue. They were going to go check out the basement while I stayed and made sure you were okay, passed out but not dead.” And now not only were they ignoring his texts, but the door wouldn’t open, and it was deathly quiet.
“Well, let’s go see what they’re doing. It’s scary quiet.” Oh good, Payne felt that too. So at least that part wasn’t his imagination.
“Yeah, it has been for a while.” He went over to the door to open it—he wasn’t going to say it was stuck only to have it suddenly be fine because then he’d look like an idiot. Or a liar. He grabbed the door hand
le—yet again—then turned it and tugged it hard. Yeah, not lying. Not imagining it. It wouldn’t open.
Payne groaned. “Not again. I was stuck in here two days once.”
“I hope you stocked snacks after that happened.” That’s what Will would have done. He was going to ignore the part where Payne getting stuck in his room was starting to become a habit. Will wasn’t sure he’d still be living here if he were in Payne’s shoes.
Payne gave him a wicked smile. “You know it.”
Score! He returned Payne’s grin. “Yeah? What’s on offer?”
“I’ve got chips, doughnuts, cookies, chocolate, beef jerky, and a bunch of Cokes.”
“Oh, we can live for days on that.” He looked around. He could use one of those Cokes and some doughnuts, especially if they were the little ones with the white powder. Those were one of his weaknesses. Where was Payne hiding his booty?
There was a big wooden chest at the foot of the bed and Payne leaned down to open it, revealing the food and drinks in there.
Will reached for a Coke, then stopped himself. “Is it okay if I help myself?”
“Of course. Please.” Payne went to the door and tugged at the knob. “Let us out! Come on. We’re in here.” He was getting as much of an answer as Will had—none.
Will grabbed a bag of the doughnuts—which were indeed the little powdered-sugar ones—and one of the Cokes. He set them on the bedside table, then strode over to the door and pounded on it with his fists. “Jason! Come on, buddy!” Frankly, he was worried that something had happened to the guys. That made far more sense than them locking the door and ignoring him.
“They’re out there,” Payne assured him. “The construction workers who were here when it happened last time didn’t hear me either.”
“Was it this quiet? Were the construction workers down in the basement too?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember. Well, not in the basement because I haven’t had any work done down there. But one minute I was in the kitchen, and the next I woke up in here.”
“You’ve got a real problem here.” He was still honestly surprised that Payne was staying here under these circumstances.
“That’s why I called you. I don’t know what to do.”
“Yeah. We’ll get it figured out. Blaine’s our secret weapon because he’s the real deal. And the rest of us are pretty good at reading the instruments. If you’d let us go down to the….” It occurred to him that if the entity had them locked up here and was dealing with the rest of the team downstairs, maybe it wouldn’t stop Payne from talking about the basement.
He offered the guy a Coke and broke the seal on his own. Then he opened the doughnuts and put the package on the bed so they could both reach them.
“So,” he began casually. “What’s the story with the basement?”
“My gramma fell down there. It’s always been scary, you know? Always. I don’t understand why, but none of us liked it. I can’t remember ever actually going down there,” Payne admitted.
“That fits in with the theory that this other entity is old.” Will drank his Coke. This whole place felt off, strange. Like the situation at the hospital. Something was going on. Big-time.
“I guess? I hate this. It’s unnatural.”
Will couldn’t disagree with that. “You’ve got to deal, though. I mean what other choice is there?” This thing clearly wasn’t going to go away on its own, and it obviously had a beef with Payne, given all the flying dishes and fainting.
“Exactly. I’m not losing my inheritance, this house, because of ghosts. No way.” Payne looked adamant. It was good to see he had the gumption to fight for what was his.
“Then fight it is. You’ve got the right guys behind you now. Or beneath you. I have no clue where they are.” For all he knew they’d fucking left. No, he knew better than that. They wouldn’t do that to him. They wouldn’t have locked the bedroom door either. Not only could it be dangerous, but they wouldn’t treat him like a kid.
“They’re here. Of course, they might not even remember to look for us,” Payne noted.
He shot Payne a look. That was a horrifying thought. “Surely not. It’s not like they’re random workers, and I’m a part of the team. They wouldn’t forget we exist.”
“Right. Of course. Of course they’re looking for you.”
“They’d better be,” he muttered. “They’d fucking better be.” He went over to the door and banged on it with his fists again. “We’re up here! Stuck!” Fucking doors. Fucking ghosts. Maybe he should ask Payne to look through the keyhole. Though he didn’t figure the guy needed the creep factor. Payne already knew his house was haunted.
“I don’t understand any of this. At least we have a bathroom, right?” Payne was clearly looking for the bright side. As a silver lining, it wasn’t that shiny, but Payne was right, there were a myriad of ways in which it could be worse.
“Yes. Trust me, peeing in a soda can is way less fun than advertised.” Between the little hole being not only exactly that—little—but also sharp, it wasn’t really that much of an alternative.
“Is it advertised as fun?” Payne asked.
“What? No. That’s the point—it isn’t advertised as fun, and it’s even less fun than that.”
“I was… I’m sorry.” Payne sighed. “I was trying to ease the tension.”
“Oh.” Oops? He was always sticking his foot in it with this man. “I guess I was too tense for a tension easer?”
“I guess. I’ve done this before. You’re new.”
“I might be new but I can recognize that it’s pretty damn fucked up.” He looked around. It was such a normal room. Nicely decorated, but still very normal. “It doesn’t feel spooky in here. Although I did see that dark eye staring at me through the keyhole.”
“A dark eye? Really?” Payne shuddered. “Creepy.”
It said a lot about what the guy had been through that Payne believed him, just like that.
“Yeah, it was fucking creepy. And not natural.” He sat on the bed again and rubbed the back of his head. Maybe now he felt a little bit the way Blaine often did. Although for the most part, Blaine was pretty okay with the things he saw and felt. Will was not okay with being locked in a room and seeing creepy eyes staring at him malevolently.
“Maybe we should cover the keyhole with a scarf?” Payne hadn’t stopped looking at the lock since Will had mentioned the eye.
“You think it’s still watching us?” Will wasn’t sure why he was as creeped out as he was. This was what he did for a living. Of course it wasn’t usually quite so… personal. And he was used to ghosts who didn’t come with actual eyes.
“I don’t know, but I don’t want it to.”
“Yeah, good point. You got a scarf up here? Or a T-shirt or something?” Well duh, it was the guy’s bedroom, so of course there’d be something they could use.
“I do. Here.” Payne pulled a gray, patterned scarf out of a drawer and handed it over.
Will pushed the material into the keyhole, doing it quickly so he didn’t linger very long. He was worried about his finger being vulnerable. Which was insane—it had been an eye and not teeth, and surely there wasn’t anything with an eye that size that could get its mouth into the keyhole.
“Okay, that feels better, right?” Payne asked.
“Yeah, it does.” Will snorted because it was silly, but it was true. It was like now that whatever it was couldn’t see into the room, they were safe.
Payne nodded. “Yeah. It really does.”
“So… you got any board games or anything in here?” Will looked around as if asking about it would make the games suddenly appear.
“I have movies and cards. Either of those work?”
“You wanna watch a movie, then?” That would be easier than having to talk. He didn’t know what to say to Payne—they’d started on such a wrong foot. Which was entirely down to him. He knew he was the one who’d been an uncalled-for asshat.
“Yeah, le
t’s do the movie thing. Nothing scary, though.”
Will chuckled. “What, not The Shining or The Blair Witch Project?” He was kidding, honestly. He didn’t need anything scary to freak him out worse than he already was, thank you very much.
“No Poltergeist or Paranormal Activity either.”
“Damn.” He gave Payne a wink to show they were actually both on the same page. “You got anything bright and cheery?”
“Uh… Moana?”
“You’re not serious.” Though he supposed a Disney movie—cartoon at that—couldn’t be anything but cheery. At the very least have a happy ending.
“I like Disney!”
“I haven’t seen it, so at least it’ll be something new.” He grabbed some of the pillows and piled them to one side near the head of the bed, then sat against them. Not bad. He shifted this way and that, wriggled his ass a little, and was good.
Payne searched through a pile of movies, before finding what he was looking for and sticking it in the Blu-ray player.
Will supposed the guy wasn’t bad looking, if you liked the nerdy type. Which he’d have to admit he did. And Payne was a fine example of a good-looking nerdy type.
Figures he’d be realizing that now. He frowned. Why hadn’t he noticed earlier? That wasn’t like him. It wasn’t like he was a horndog, at least not most of the time, but he did usually notice a good-looking nerdy guy who crossed his path.
Payne had been a sneak attack.
And Will was staring. He only realized it when he found himself caught by Payne as the guy stood and turned.
Payne looked over one of his shoulders, then the other. “Tell me there’s not, like, a demon on my back.”
Will shook his head immediately. “God no.” Had there been a demon on Payne’s back he could actually see, at least a little screaming would have been involved. “You’ve got a great ass.” Dammit, he’d said that out loud, hadn’t he?
“Oh. Uh. Thank you. I mean, that’s nice.”
