by BL Maxwell
I was no stranger to frotting but this was on a whole different level than anything I’d experienced before. The sounds coming out of Jason while his hard cock rubbed against my own were sexy as hell. In what seemed like no time at all, I was shooting between us. Jason used it to lubricate his hand, squeezing a little tighter on my sensitive cock, then he was coming too. The sight of him in that moment, with his head thrown back, the cording strained in his tensed neck, that sinful mouth open in a silent scream, all while his cock pulsed and spilled between us, was my fantasy come to life.
“I’ll never get enough of you,” I whispered to him before I devoured his mouth. He held me to him and gave as good as he was getting. We were both hot, sweaty messes by the time we were done. But I wanted more, and by the look on his face, so did he. The only thing that stopped me was looking up and remembering we were in this shitty house and had come here for a reason. Something that still meant a lot to Jason. I slowed down our kisses and gave him one last peck.
“Let’s get cleaned up, and then finish going over the recordings.”
He regarded me with a sleepy look then traced his fingers over the shell of my ear. “That sounds good, although staying in bed with you all day sounds even better.” Taking in the tattered wallpaper and curtains barely hanging on the windows, he added, “Maybe not here, but when we get home we are having a day alone in bed. I want to enjoy that body as much as I can.” He eyed me with appreciation.
I barked out a laugh. “Never in a million years did I think I’d hear you say that to me.” I smacked him with a kiss, before I pulled my pants off and went to our bags. I pulled out a package of wet wipes and proceeded to clean us both up.
Chapter Thirteen
After the morning we’d shared, neither of us really wanted to spend time being too far apart from each other. So we sat side by side on the bed and watched the video recordings together. Most of the footage was nothing. A few dust motes, occasionally a chunk of plaster would fall, but nothing that seemed paranormal.
I knew we needed to watch the basement recording, but I wasn’t in a hurry. I felt like I knew enough of what Jason had gone through without actually seeing it. So I deliberately avoided that video feed, and I watched the video of the little girl again. I didn’t notice anything different than what we’d seen earlier. It was still really weird, but not violent or threatening. We watched the video with the three people on the top floor again, that was a great catch too. “I can’t wait to post some of this footage on the paranormal Facebook page. Those assholes are gonna lose their shit,” Jason boasted. He was so excited to actually get some things on video.
When he switched to the basement view, I braced myself for what we were about to see. At first it was like we had left it, debris all over but nothing had changed. “I’m gonna fast-forward and see when shit started happening.”
It didn’t take long. There seemed to be an almost constant motion in the room, as though there was restrained energy waiting for a way to get out. Then he was there, the spirit of Robert Chalmers. He repeated what we’d seen him do earlier—he walked around the room in confusion. Then his mood changed from confusion to rage.
Suddenly, everything in the room was flying around as if a tornado had touched down. He stood in the middle of it all with a satisfied grin on his face. Maybe after dying the way he had, he’d finally found the strength he couldn’t find in life to fight his way out of being imprisoned in the basement.
As suddenly as it started it ended. He stood there looking around again, then slowly made his way over to where the cell had been. He leaned back against the wall and slid down to the floor. He wrapped his arms around his knees and began to rock. Then he slowly faded away.
“Why is he still here? You’d think after how shitty his life ended up he would be anxious to get the fuck out of here,” I mumbled to myself. Jason looked over at me then back to the screen.
“Let’s fast-forward to where I went down there.”
My head snapped up to look directly at him. “Are you sure?”
He mulled it over for a second. “Yes, I want to see what the hell happened,” he said, while scrolling through the recording looking for the moment that he’d ended up down there.
“Wait. Why don’t you look at the other feeds too, then we can follow what you did when you left the room.”
“That’s a great idea. Just let me find the time stamp of when I walked into the basement; it’ll make it easier to find it on each feed.” His fingers flew over the keyboard. He knew this program way better than I did. I was glad that we’d set up cameras all over the place; we should be able to see exactly what happened.
“There, that’s when I first walked into the basement. It says 2:32 a.m. Can you start looking at those other videos and I’ll look at the other ones on this laptop?”
“Of course. I’m curious as hell about why you would go down there in the middle of the night.” I started immediately going to that time stamp on the other feeds on my laptop. “How about if we start at the one outside the hall. Like you suggested, we can follow what happened in order.”
In no time at all we had it all cued up. I started the video that showed the view of our door. At just about two-thirty Jason walked out of the room. He didn’t look asleep or out of it. He looked like he always did. He stepped into the hall then turned around and pulled the door shut. He continued to walk down the hall to the top of the stairs.
We switched the view to the camera mounted at the top of the stairs facing the front door. Jason started down the stairs like he did every other time he’d gone down them while we’d been here. Then about halfway down he slowly turned and faced the camera. He stared straight into it and smiled. Not the sweet, carefree smile I’d always known. This was an evil grin. He was up to something only he knew about and no one else would be happy about.
“What the fuck?” he asked without pulling his eyes away from the screen.
“I have no clue. Are you sure you don’t remember anything?”
“Nothing. Not one damn thing.”
“Let’s watch the one in the basement.”
Jason had it all cued up so all we had to do was push play. I held my breath with worry and fear about what we were going to see.
“Can we listen to the audio at the same time?”
He tapped out a few more commands on the laptop and soon there were only two images on it: one was the view of the basement last night, and the other was the window that showed a graph of the captured audio.
“You ready?” he asked as his finger hovered over the enter key.
“I hope so.” I leaned closer to him to get a better view. At first there was nothing happening, the basement was empty and there was no activity. Slowly, the inner wooden door opened, and Jason stepped into the basement. He stood there for a moment, before looking around like he expected to see something. He seemed to find what he was looking for as he walked right over to where the cell had been that held Robert Chalmers. He stood very still and peered into the space. Suddenly Robert Chalmers was there standing right in front of Jason, but he didn’t even react.
I chanced a glance over at Jason, and he had a look of utter disbelief on his face. “You don’t remember that?”
He shook his head. None of this made any sense. Why would he have gone down there alone, and why would he be standing so close to a spirit and not be freaking out?
They stood like that for a few seconds, neither of them moving, then Jason started to shimmer; his skin seemed to take on a transparency. Suddenly, it wasn’t Jason standing there at all—it was Louise Chalmers. Jason seemed to be wearing her skin. She was a transparency covering him from head to toe. He was barely visible as only a shimmer when she moved. She stepped forward, even closer to her husband than she had been when she still resembled Jason. She reached her hand out to her husband, and he grasped it in his.
They didn’t appear to say anything, just stood there and stared deeply at each other. They both seemed so
sad, so brokenhearted. A story had been told of her locking him in that cell to keep him safe, but seeing them now, it was easier to imagine it being true.
He raised his other hand and patted the top of her hand he still held, and gave her a soft smile. All at once it wasn’t Louise Chalmers, it was Jason. He seemed to startle awake. He whipped his head around trying to figure out where he was. Then he looked straight ahead and saw that he was face to face with the spirit of Robert Chalmers. The shocked look on his face was easy to see. He tried to back away and raised his hands in supplication, but Chalmers kept moving toward him. When Jason had backed into the bar behind him, Chalmers pulled his arms back like he was getting ready to heave some invisible thing at Jason or he was building up for something to happen.
Then he screamed; a blood-curdling, soul-shaking scream. Jason started to shrink away from him, but Chalmers reached out and grabbed his arms, forcing him to stay there. Jason tried to look away from him. He twisted his arms trying to break free, but the long-dead hands of Mr. Chalmers were too strong and held him fast.
Jason’s chest started heaving with the effort of not looking at him and trying to wrench himself away. He seemed to be drawing energy from Jason. The weaker Jason became the stronger Chalmers appeared. Finally Jason seemed to give up. His head lolled forward before he slowly lifted it. As soon as his eyes were locked with the spirit, the terror in him increased tenfold. He opened his mouth and screamed like he would soon suffer some horrible fate.
I blinked my eyes, trying to reason out what I’d just watched. The reality of what had happened down there was so much worse than I had imagined. “Jason?” I reached over and tried to grab his hand. He was sitting there unmoving, staring at the screen.
“What happened to me, Wade? Why don’t I remember any of this?”
“I’m not sure. You’re the expert in all things paranormal. I’m just more of a sidekick. What do you think happened?”
He blinked a few times before speaking. “I think his wife used my body to get to her husband, and he’s trapped down there and either can’t or won’t leave. She may have been trying to convince him to leave. She didn’t seem to be evil; she was trying to help him. But for some reason she can’t go into the basement. She had to use me to get there.”
“If you’re right then maybe he wasn’t trying to hurt you. Maybe he just wants to leave here and doesn’t know how.” I stopped to think about that. “How can we help him? There has to be something we can do to get him the hell out of here.”
“His family must be waiting for him. They’ve waited for over a hundred years already. You’re right, Wade, we need to help him.”
Jason turned his attention back to the recording, and we continued watch the rest of it. Immediately after Jason started screaming, the ghost let him go. He backed up to the wall and slid down again. Jason still didn’t move and Chalmers didn’t look at him again before he slowly faded away. Not a minute later, I saw myself enter the room and run over to Jason.
Jason paused the recording and turned to me. He wrapped his arms around me and drew me close to his chest. “Thank you so much, Wade. Thanks for not leaving me down there.”
I pulled out of his embrace and pushed him back, still holding him by the upper arms. “You don’t have to thank me. There is nothing that could have stopped me from finding you. I’m sorry I didn’t realize you were gone sooner.” I pulled him into my arms and cradled the back of his head to my chest. This made it all worth it, this closeness that I’d craved with him.
“Are you still up for going into Coloma? We can eat lunch and get back here while it’s still light and check out the equipment, make sure we don’t need to change anything,” I asked.
“That sounds perfect. My feet are better, but I think a little extra padding would really help.”
“Let me get the gauze and pads, and I’ll take care of you.”
He smiled shyly at me. He liked the idea of that, me taking care of him. He was always so independent I was surprised to learn this about him, not that I minded taking that job at all.
I picked up our breakfast mess and put the remains in the cooler. It would be fine there until tomorrow. Then I gathered everything I needed to wrap up his feet.
“Put them on my lap.” I guided his feet gently and made sure to not touch the bottoms any more than I had to.
“How do they look?”
“They look better, much less red and swollen. Are you sure you’re up to walking around? We can just go for a drive if you want to get away from here for a while.”
“No, it’s fine. Why don’t we see how I feel, and if it starts to be too painful then we can drive around.”
“Promise you’ll let me know if it’s hurting. I don’t want you to be in pain and not tell me.” I tried to be stern about it, but it came out more like I was scolding him. He acted like he was listening to me, right before he laughed at me.
I shoved him in the shoulder. “I felt bad for you for about a minute.”
That just made him laugh harder. “You know you love me. There’s no way you’d let me walk around being in pain.”
I stopped all movement at the words he’d just spoken. I knew he meant it as a joke, but as I’d realized earlier, it was true. I did love him.
I reached over to him and cupped his jaw. “You know it’s true, don’t you? I do love you.”
He put his hand on top of mine. He looked down and blushed with a huge smile on his face. “I know, and I feel the same. But you already knew that too.”
“It’s nice to hear though.” I hugged him to me once more and whispered in his ear. “I love you, Jason Thomas.”
He put his lips to my ear. “I love you too.” A shiver ran down my spine. I wasn’t sure if it was from his words or from his lips brushing lightly on my ear.
I cleared my throat and sat back on the end of the bed. “Okay, lover boy, let’s get your feet fixed up so we can go explore all the historical stuff around here. I haven’t been here for years. Not since elementary school.”
He couldn’t hide the smile on his lips. He looked so happy. And if I had anything to do with it, that’s how he’d stay.
Chapter Fourteen
After wrapping fresh bandages around his feet and gluing some of the deeper cuts closed, we were ready to get out of the house for a few hours. Jason stood gingerly to see how painful it would be to stand.
“How is it?”
“I think I can handle it. You did a great job with the bandages, and I think leaving them off for a while actually helped too.”
“Let me help you down the stairs. I don’t want you getting hurt again while we’re here.” I scolded him as I walked over and looped my arm around his waist. He paused for a second then buried his face in my neck. I reached around and hugged him to me, rubbing his back and hoping it gave him some comfort. “I couldn’t stand it if anything more happened to you.”
“I don’t want you getting hurt either. One good thing to come from staying here is I now know how you feel about me. I won’t waste another moment on doubt.”
We stayed there both taking comfort from the other like it was second nature to us and not something new. I drew in a deep breath and held him at arms-length. “Come on, let’s get you some warm food.”
He smiled up at me, and once again I put my arm around him to help guide him down the hall. When we reached the top of the stairs, I grabbed his waist even tighter. We carefully started down the stairs. There were blood splotches all over them and the entryway floor from where Jason had walked last night when his feet were still bleeding through the bandages. I couldn’t stop myself from looking at each and every one of them.
“Hey, Wade, I’m okay. You took great care of me. I’m going to be all right.”
“Come on, let’s get out of here for a while.” We walked together out the front door and slowly made our way down the steep steps from the porch. “Give me your keys, I’m driving,” I nearly demanded. Jason shrugged his shoulders, and I h
elped him to the passenger door.
“I really can walk on my own, you know.” He grinned over at me.
“I know, but I’m not taking any chances, and I love finally getting to be so close to you.” As soon as I was seated behind the wheel, Jason reached across the middle console and held my cheek in his palm. He searched my eyes; finally seeing what he was looking for, he leaned in and kissed me.
“I’ll never get tired of being able to touch you or kiss you. Or any of the other things I want to do to you when we get home and actually have a clean bed.”
I could not hold back my smile. He was on the same page as I was and hopefully sooner or later we’d be able to act on our feelings. I leaned into him as much as I could over the console and kissed him back. “More of that please.”
He huffed a laugh then sat back and buckled up. We made our way away from the house and stopped when we were facing the cemetery. “It really is creepy that the cemetery is so close to their house. I guess it was convenient though.”
“Really? Convenient? Still so freaking creepy.”
He laughed out loud at that. “Yes, you’re right. Come on, let’s get some food.”
We followed the little winding road around the bend and ended up in the town of Coloma after just a few minutes. The tourists were out in force, wandering from historical building to historical marker, and the beautiful fall day made me want to join them. “Think you can handle walking around for a little bit? I can park really close so you don’t have to walk far.”
“Sure. Is there something in particular you want to go look at?”
“Sutter’s Mill, of course. Let’s see where the gold rush began.”
So we did. We pulled into the parking lot and made the short walk over to the area where the mill was supposed to have originally been.
“Let’s get a picture of us in front of the marker,” Jason said then carefully walked over to another group of tourists to ask if one of them could take our picture. A nice older lady smiled and said of course she’d help. Jason handed her his phone and walked back to where I waited.