by Sean Michael
“Oh my God!” Flynn looked behind him like he expected the guy to still be there. “Shit. Guys, you have to see this.”
Blaine’s skin crawled a little, though. He wasn’t sure he wanted to see it again.
They backed it up and played it frame by frame, and it was totally there.
“That’s fucking creepy, man.” Darnell shook his head. “I know we’re goddamn ghost hunters, but that’s not cool.”
“It looks like it’s sitting on your shoulders, Blaine.”
“No, it looks like it’s whispering in your ear.”
“No, it looks like it’s trying to merge into him.” Flynn rubbed Blaine’s back with one hand, like he was trying to reassure himself that the thing wasn’t still there.
“It’s not cool, whatever it is.” Blaine shook his head, swallowed hard, and then stood. He didn’t want to see that.
“This is amazing.” Jase sounded excited. “We’ve never had such clear film of an actual entity!”
“I just wish it wasn’t at Blaine’s expense,” murmured Flynn, shivering. “God.”
“Is it biting on him?” Will whispered.
Flynn shrugged. “Something bit him. And the bite looked more human than buggish. And then something tore it all open again earlier today. So you tell me.”
“Ew. Let’s not talk about that, huh?” Blaine was going to gag.
“Ixnay on the aggotmay,” Flynn told the others.
They went back to their separate corners to fulfill their various tasks.
Jason sat up suddenly. “Fucking weird. It says here they died on May 12, 1984. Isn’t that the day you were born, Blaine?”
“It’s my birthday too,” Flynn said quietly.
Blaine stared at Flynn. “What?” No way.
“Swear to God. Down to the year.”
“Well, Christian died around noon, and they heard the shot around two for David,” Jason shared.
Flynn shivered. “I was born in the afternoon.”
“I don’t know. Don’t ask me what time I was born. I was born at that fucking hospital!”
“Oh my God!” Flynn sat there with his mouth hanging open.
“Jesus. Jesus.” Darnell looked gobsmacked. “Are we saying…?”
“I don’t know what we’re saying.” Jase started making notes. “But it’s a huge coincidence that you were both born the same day as the couple from room 204 died. And that when you both showed up at the hospital together… things started happening.”
“It’s all like a setup. It has to be.”
“By who?” Flynn asked. “I mean, who would do that to us? Why? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“I’m as big a fan of a good conspiracy theory as the next guy, but I’ve got to admit that Flynn raises a good point. Who would do it and why?” Darnell scratched his head and shrugged. “There’s nothing on the tape of you and Will going through the room on the initial run-through. I mean, nothing. This all started when Flynn showed up. Hey—have you got any enemies, man? Maybe this is because of you and not Blaine.”
Blaine looked to Flynn. “Ex-boyfriends? Jealous scientists?”
Flynn shook his head. “I was always the breakee—not that there were many. As for scientists….” Flynn shrugged. “I’m not exactly in a popular field, you know?”
“True that.” Jason frowned. “So let’s assume that it is supernatural. What do the ghosts want?”
“For us to go to room 204.” Flynn held out his hands. “What? Don’t look at me—that’s what I’m getting from it.”
“You can’t go there.” Blaine was sure of that. Knew it would be a terrible idea.
“You keep saying that.” Flynn sat back. “But I’m not letting this hang on to you. We don’t know if it’s doing more than just putting bugs in you and ripping open your skin. Maybe it’s zapping your energy too, taking years from you. I don’t know what’s real and what’s not, but you’re being hurt. That’s real.”
“You two just keep thrashing over the same shit,” Will said.
“What if the three of us went and did a live feed?” Jase asked.
“Which three—you, me, and Will?” Blaine asked.
“No, I meant Darnell, Will, and me,” Jase answered. “You said you didn’t want Flynn there. I’m guessing he doesn’t want you there either.”
Flynn didn’t hesitate for even a second. “You got that right.”
“That’s fair, I guess. Do we have any information about them? Anything new?”
Jason shrugged. “David was a schoolteacher, and Christian was an artist. David had a sister here in town who was killed by a bus about five years after David died.”
“What about Christian’s family?” Flynn asked. “The ones who wouldn’t let David see him.”
“There was a mom and dad, a brother, an aunt. Superconservative types. Dad was a minister.”
“Oh man. That had to be rough on Christian. Poor guy.” Will shook his head. “We should go do this now, yeah? Get it done.”
“It’s already late, guys. You could go tomorrow. In the daylight.”
Flynn nodded vigorously at Blaine’s suggestion. “I think that’s a great idea. I know we need to solve this, but daylight sounds way safer than going at night.”
“That makes sense.” Darnell didn’t look all that eager to go. “Let’s research tonight.”
“Sure. And maybe Blaine and I should go with you. Maybe we should sit out in the van outside. In case you guys need backup,” Flynn suggested.
“We’ll discuss it tomorrow,” Blaine said. “We’re all going to pretend like we’re not total dipshits and research tonight.”
“Damn, I was kind of going for total dipshit,” Flynn teased him, eyes twinkling.
“You and me both. I wanted another beer and a Stargate marathon.”
“Oh, I like it.” Flynn nodded. “What do you say, guys, is it a plan?”
Jase threw up his hands. “What the hell.”
Thank God. Blaine couldn’t go back there. Not yet. Not now.
Tomorrow he’d find another excuse.
Chapter Fourteen
FLYNN and Blaine sat hunched over the laptop in the van, watching the camera feed as the guys went up the stairs on their way to room 204.
“You think they’ll be okay?” Flynn asked. He hoped so. He didn’t think it was going to help, but he had a hunch they were going to be okay. Flynn thought he and Blaine were ultimately going to have to go up there to deal with whatever this was. All signs pointed that way.
Blaine held his hand, squeezing it tight. He squeezed right back, his eyes glued to the screen.
The guys made it up the stairs and moved along the corridor, slowly. It was funny how it looked like nighttime in the corridor with no windows to let in the afternoon sun. Funny but not funny, really.
He swallowed as they stopped in front of a door and focused the camera on the number on it: 204.
“They shouldn’t go in,” Blaine whispered.
“Babe, they have to. We’ve got to deal with this. We do.” Flynn was nervous too, and if it was just a matter of getting establishing shots or checking out something weird going on with the hospital, he’d be totally down with calling the whole thing off. But something had followed Blaine home, for fuck’s sake, and was hurting him. It had to be done.
They needed to put this to rest somehow, give David and Christian peace. Flynn was convinced that was the only way he and Blaine were going to find their own peace, now that they’d become connected to the story. He didn’t want to examine how closely, given they were both born the same day that David and Christian had died. Looking at that too closely was just plain spooky.
There were a lot of things Flynn was discovering he didn’t want to be curious about.
“There they go,” he murmured as the guys opened the door to 204 and went in, the room looking fucking creepy lit only by a few cracks in the blinds over the windows and their flashlights.
“Open the blinds, man,” Will said,
and Jason nodded.
“We’re in room 204, looking for evidence of the couple who died in this room in the 1980s—David and Christian.” Jason walked over to one of the windows, grabbed the cord to the blinds, and tugged.
“Be careful!” Blaine said, shocking the hell out of Flynn as the entire set of blinds came down, crashing to the floor in a poof of dust.
Flynn gasped. “How did you know?”
“Because I’ve done it. Like eighty fucking times.”
Flynn shook his head. “No, you told me you were only in there the once to check it out. You guys haven’t even been here eighty times.”
“I meant the blinds in old places.”
“Oh.” Flynn laughed and nudged their shoulders together. “Sorry. I’m seeing ghosts around every corner, it seems.”
“It’s understandable, I think.” Blaine leaned against him and spoke into his mike. “You okay, Jase?”
“Nothing hurt but my pride, man. Possibly my shirt.”
Flynn chuckled and tapped on his earpiece to turn it on. “I bet both can be fixed with a little duct tape.”
“Yeah, yeah. Can you two see clearly?”
To be honest, there wasn’t all that much to see: a sink, wires, a single IV stand in the corner, and dust. Lots of dust.
“Yeah, we can see just fine. Unless you’re seeing something that we’re not.” Flynn shook his head. Why did he keep thinking that the only way this was going to get fixed was if he and Blaine went in together?
“Dust. Dirt. There’s not a lot in here.”
“Run some EVPs, man. Talk to them. See if they’ll answer.” Blaine grinned a little bit, just the barest smile. “It’s your chance to be the lead.”
“Fuck you, man.” Jase threw him the finger.
Flynn snorted. “You’re on camera, man.”
“Yeah, yeah. Edit it out.”
“I totally will.” Darnell snorted. “Come on. Let’s do this. It’s creepy in here.”
“Any EMF readings?”
Darnell held the machine up to Will’s camera. “Some. Not enough to be significant, but too many to disregard them out of hand.”
“But there’s no cold spots. And nothing on the monitors to indicate anyone’s here.”
“Someone’s there,” Flynn said. “I can feel it.”
“Someone’s always there,” Blaine noted.
A bang sounded in his earphone, and the guys in the room started looking around, the camera swinging wildly, making him nauseated for a second.
“Was that a shot? You hear that, Blaine? That sounded like a shot.” It took everything he had not to bound off his seat and run in there.
“I guess? I don’t know. Guys? Guys, is everyone okay?”
“Yeah, yeah. We’re good.” Jase shook his head. “That was definitely a shot, and it sounded like it came from in here. None of the readings changed, though. It’s like they’re resisting the machines or something.”
“Do you see anything?” Flynn asked. “Try the EVPs now. See if Christian or David will talk to you.”
God, his heart was racing. He kept hold of Blaine’s hand, gripping it like it was a lifeline. Maybe it was.
He heard Jase asking Christian to talk to him. Then David, Jase trying to encourage any specters to make contact. Flynn didn’t hear anything, but when he looked at Blaine, his lover shrugged.
“Lots of times we don’t until we play it back. You know that.”
“I know. Things have just been so strong with this room, I expect it to work, you know?” He thought they wanted him and Blaine here, so why clam up? Well, because they hadn’t gone in; the others had. “Maybe they’re waiting for us to show up.”
“You can’t go in there.”
“To save you from the ghost chomping you to bits, yes I can.” He was more afraid of Blaine getting hurt than of any ghost in room 204.
The sound came again, louder this time, almost like it was in the van with them.
Flynn looked at Blaine. “Babe. We aren’t going to be able to solve this from here. We need to go in and figure it out. Don’t you think these guys deserve peace? Don’t you?”
“You don’t understand.” Blaine’s shoulders were hunched, his head lowered between them.
“You’re right, I don’t. I get that something terrible happened there—and that was before we knew someone was murdered—but if we’re going to shake loose of it, we have to go.” He was going to say it again and again until either the ghosts were gone or Blaine finally agreed with him.
“No, David. You don’t understand.” Blaine swung around, and suddenly it wasn’t Flynn’s lover there. It was a stranger. A dark-eyed man.
It stunned Flynn so badly he didn’t even see the movement as something came down on his head, knocking him out cold.
Chapter Fifteen
FLYNN’S head hurt, like really, and he groaned as he reached for the back of his skull. He squinted, the sun almost painfully bright until he shaded his eyes.
He was in the van, half sitting, half lying in the back seat. The laptop was on its side on the floor in front of him. He squinted harder to make out the picture. It was the stairs of the hospital—the guys were obviously on their way down after… after being in room 204.
“Blaine?” He looked around, but Blaine wasn’t in the van with him. “What?” He couldn’t see Blaine anywhere, not on the grounds, not on the steps to the doors of the hospital, nowhere.
The guys burst out of the doors a second or two later and headed right for him.
“Flynn! Blaine! You guys all right?”
He blinked, looking at them as they pulled open the side panel door.
“What happened? You guys all of a sudden stopped communicating.”
“Yeah, we thought something had happened.”
“Hey, where’s Blaine?” Darnell asked.
“I… I don’t know.” They’d been watching the guys on the monitor, and then all of a sudden…. He put his hand on his head and groaned again. Someone had hit him. Hard.
“Jesus. Jesus, Will, grab me a towel or something. Where’s Blaine?” Darnell asked.
“I don’t know! He didn’t go up to room 204?” Flynn blinked, trying to clear his mind.
Will passed a towel to Jase, who grabbed Flynn’s hand and lifted it to put the cloth between his head and his hand. “You’re bleeding like a son of a bitch.”
“Oh.”
“Looks like you got clocked pretty good.”
Well, that explained the splitting headache and the pain where he was pressing the towel against his scalp.
“Who did this to you, man?” Darnell asked.
“I don’t know.” He remembered the look on…. He hesitated to say Blaine’s face, because it sure as hell hadn’t looked like Blaine. “Something’s really wrong with Blaine.”
“We need to get you to the hospital, Flynn.” Jason looked worried as fuck. “Darnell, can you see Blaine anywhere out there?”
“Give me five to look; then we’ll take him.”
Flynn shook his head and regretted it immediately. “No, I’m okay. We need to find Blaine first. He can’t have gotten that far on foot, right?”
“We can look for him on the road, maybe? I don’t like this, Flynn.”
“No, I don’t either. I don’t…. Guys, I don’t think he’s in his right mind. After we heard the shots, he started freaking out. He called me David, and the last thing I remember was him yelling at me, and his eyes….” He shivered. “It wasn’t Blaine in there. We have to find him.”
“Okay. Okay, uh, Darnell? Will? Ideas?”
“I’m trying to call him,” Will said. “I don’t want to get his parents involved until we have to.”
“Are any of you on the same network as he is? Most of them have that find-my-friends app,” Flynn suggested. He was totally going to set up software on all their phones that let them track each other.
“Uh…. That’s a thing?”
“I’ll go outside, see if I can see�
� I don’t know, anything?” Darnell grinned at him, rolled his eyes. “I’ll channel my inner Boy Scout.” He walked off briskly, and Flynn spared a moment to appreciate his new friends.
“Pass me my phone.” Flynn leaned back against the seat, his head pounding harder as he moved.
“I really want to take you to the hospital, man. That looks bad.” Jason peered at his skull. “I don’t understand. Blaine did this to you?”
“No. It was someone else in Blaine’s body.”
“That’s it, time to get him to the hospital,” Will said. “Let’s go.”
“No,” Flynn insisted. “Something’s got hold of Blaine, and we need to find him before something awful happens to him. I mean, he hasn’t got a car or anything. Where the hell is he?”
“Well, I—shit. Shit! Call his phone again, Will.” Jason hit the side of the van, cheeks a dark red, and Flynn could see it—how much Jason cared about all of them, how scared their self-appointed leader was.
“It’ll be okay, man. We’re going to find him. We’re going to figure this out.” He wasn’t sure he believed it—the pit of worry in his belly was hard and ugly—but he needed someone to believe it, and he could pretend that was him for now. He was hurting, but he didn’t think having a meltdown was going to help that. Besides, he didn’t have meltdowns. He just didn’t. And if he was on the verge of having one, well, it would just have to wait.
“What…? Okay, so let’s assume it was the Dave guy in Blaine,” Jason started, and Flynn shook his head.
“No. No, it’s Christian. No question.”
“How can you be so sure?” Jase asked.
“Because he called me David. And it wasn’t the first time either.” God, had he just not been paying enough attention? No, no. He had been. He’d called Blaine on it a couple of times. This wasn’t his fault. Right?
“Okay, so, Christian. He was local, right? Where would he go?”
“Oh, that’s good. Look up his home address. See if you can find anything.” Why hadn’t he thought of that? Maybe because he’d been beaned over the head and the man he was falling in love with was possessed by the ghost of one half of a dead couple.