by Sean Michael
“It’s like someone’s on me, leaning on my shoulders, all the time,” MacGregor admitted. “Only now and then it stops. It’s usually not as bad in my bedroom, but otherwise, it’s always there.”
“That sounds uncomfortable.” Will wouldn’t like that. Hell, he didn’t like being in this house at all, and he’d only been putting up with it for a short while.
Blaine agreed. “It does.”
“It is. It’s exhausting.” MacGregor put his cup down, the thing rattling for a second. “So you guys want the tour?”
“Yeah, I think it’s time for it. Sooner we get a feel for the place and your ghost, the sooner we can help you.” Blaine took his cup to the sink and set it down.
Will grabbed his camera. “I’m going to film this, okay?” He knew they had permission, but he was trying to be nice. See? He didn’t have a hate-on for this guy. He didn’t know what Jason was riding him about.
“That’s the point for you guys, right?”
“Even if we never use the footage for a show,” Flynn explained, “it helps us if we can go back and sync up what the rest of the equipment and our senses tell us with what shows on camera.” He took out the EMF reader. “This detects spirits.”
“Really? How?”
“It picks up electromagnetic frequencies,” Jason explained, so patient. “It’ll pick up live wires and such too, so we have to pay attention.”
“Huh.” MacGregor examined the EMF reader.
“Come on, MacGregor.” Will shouldered the camera. “Give us the grand tour.”
“Well, this is the kitchen. The pantry and laundry are through here, as is the back entrance.” MacGregor opened the door to reveal the two rooms, which were loosely connected by an archway and dimly lit by moonlight streaming in the window in the back door.
They left the kitchen and only went a few steps into the hall before MacGregor stopped at another door. “This goes to the basement.” The door was locked with a heavy padlock.
“Is there something dangerous down there?” Jason asked as Blaine put his hand on the door.
“There’s no reason to go down there.” The words were almost toneless.
Frowning, Will focused the camera in on MacGregor. He looked… glassy-eyed, for a start.
“Why not?” Jason asked.
“Come to the parlor and the library.” MacGregor walked away from the basement door, and his face cleared.
Will turned the camera on the guys. “I wasn’t the only one who saw that, right?”
Jason shook his head. “That was weird. Like, Blaine weird.”
“Hey!” Blaine said it, but it was Flynn who bopped Jason on the arm.
Jason grinned at Will. “Stay with him, man. Let’s get everything.”
Will went after MacGregor, catching up with him halfway down the hall. The guy really wanted to avoid the basement. “Where to next?”
“This is the parlor.” He waved through a doorway at a smallish room cluttered with a mishmash of items. I’m not sure yet what I’m going to do with it. That’s why the extra furniture is here, so it’s a little crowded. But the library is fabulous.”
“You have a library?” Will asked. “Like, an honest-to-God library?” People had those in their houses?
“I’m a librarian. I do have an honest-to-God library.”
“Yeah, but in your house. Lead the way.” Will was impressed in spite of himself.
The library, which could be reached either through the parlor or through another door down the hall, was amazing, filled with shelves of books, a huge desk, and vast leather chairs. Will whistled. This was an old-fashioned, old-manor library. Now he regretted his “are you sure you can pay us” comment. MacGregor was clearly loaded.
“This is the room I’ve wanted to restore as long as I can remember. I’ve put so much into it.” MacGregor ran his fingers along the top of one of the chairs, then went to the shelves against the far right wall and touched them lovingly. This guy liked his books. A lot.
“So you’ve been here before you inherited it. Which makes sense as it’s a family home. When was the first time you came here?” Blaine asked.
“Oh, I must have been a baby. This is my paternal grandmother’s house. My parents divorced when I was five, and I came much less often after that.”
“Do you ever remember feeling a presence here? Either before or after she died? Did you have an imaginary friend who seemed particularly real?” Blaine focused in on MacGregor as he asked the questions.
“Bonzi. I called her Mama Bonzi.” MacGregor looked amazed. “How did you know?”
“Because maybe she wasn’t so imaginary. Kids have a stronger connection to the supernatural because they haven’t been taught not to believe yet. Tell us about Mama Bonzi.”
“She was a little gnome with a wooden spoon who lived under the bed. She made me laugh.”
“A gnome with a wooden spoon? That’s adorable.” Will chuckled.
“So she was friendly,” Blaine noted. “Did she ever go home with you, or was she just here?”
“I don’t remember. She was gone by the time I went to school—but my parents divorced, we moved, I grew up. You know?”
“I do know. That’s how it goes for most people. You grow out of ghosts.” Blaine shrugged. “Some of us don’t. It’s helpful, though, to know that she’s localized here. And that there was an entity here before your grandmother died.”
“They found her at the bottom of the stairs. She’d been dead for a week,” MacGregor delivered the news baldly. Just laid it out there.
“Jesus fuck.” Will shook his head. He hated hearing that kind of thing. Bad enough to die alone, but to be left there that long was worse.
“At the bottom of the basement stairs?” Jason asked, jerking his head back in the general direction of the padlocked door.
MacGregor shivered but didn’t answer. “The bedrooms are upstairs.”
“Did he just duck the question?” Will whispered.
“He did,” Jason cleared his throat. “Mr. MacGregor? What stairs was she found at the bottom of?”
“What?” There was that weird blankness again, like MacGregor wasn’t even there. “It was an awful thing.”
Will tightened the shot on MacGregor.
“Yes, yes. Very awful. Where did they find your grandmother, Mr. MacGregor? What’s at the bottom of the basement stairs?” Blaine spoke clearly and slowly.
A book flew off the shelf as soon as MacGregor opened his mouth and slammed into the side of his head. His eyes rolled up into his head, and he collapsed.
“Holy fuck!” Will kept filming, but only because Flynn and Blaine and Jason had jumped in to help MacGregor. He wasn’t such a jerk that he’d have left the guy knocked out on the floor. No matter how tempting it might be.
“Shit! Someone run to the kitchen and grab a cold cloth.” Flynn barked out the order.
Darnell sprinted off. Will kept filming; he knew there was nothing constructive he could do at that moment.
Flynn took off his sweater, folded it, and put it beneath MacGregor’s head. Blaine put his hand on MacGregor’s chest as if to make sure he was still breathing.
“Jesus. Did you see that?” Jason asked. “Something doesn’t want us going down into that basement—something not nice either. You think there’s two entities here—one good and one bad?”
Blaine snorted. “In a place this big and this old? There could be tons.”
They all looked at Blaine.
“Seriously? Do you really think there could be not only more than one but a bunch?” Jason asked.
“I don’t know. I know we’re going to have to get into that basement at some point,” Blaine said. “That’s clear to everyone, not just me, right?”
Will agreed along with the rest. “Yeah. We might have to do it when he’s not around, though. He could get killed if something else beans him in the head like that.” Was it even safe for the guy to be in the house at all? “You think he should check int
o a hotel or something?”
“Do you think it’ll let him out?” Darnell asked, arriving back with a wet rag in his hands. “Do you think it’ll let us out this time?”
Will swallowed. He was a muscular, tough guy, but this was kind of freaky, and he had to admit to being nervous—to himself at least. This was more than them exploring some potentially haunted building trying to find ghosts. Something malicious was going on here.
Jason put the cloth on MacGregor’s forehead. “Come on, man. Wake up. Wake up.”
“We gonna take him to the hospital if he doesn’t?” Will asked. Because this was fucked up. Like, really.
“Yeah, we’ll need to.” Jason patted MacGregor’s cheeks.
“Damn. What hit me?”
“Charles Dickens’s Bleak House.” Will swung the camera over to where the book lay on the floor. Damn, that was a thick book.
MacGregor wrinkled his nose. “Oh. I never liked that one.”
“Nobody liked that one. Especially when it hits them in the head. Come on, MacGregor, wake up.” Will wasn’t sure the guy was totally with them yet.
“I’m awake. Let me sit up. Damn, that throbs.” Payne pulled himself up and sat there on the floor, leaning against one of the chairs. He blinked a few times. Frankly, he still looked out of it—in Will’s decidedly nonmedical opinion.
“Let’s get you to the hospital,” Jason suggested.
“No. No, it happens. What did I say to piss it off this time?”
“It happens? Like, this isn’t the first time?” Will shook his head. That shit was messed up. Just accepting it as a matter of course was even more messed up. “You didn’t say anything.” He was starting to think MacGregor was crazy, living in a house with ghosts that were clearly not friendly.
“Yeah.” Jason tried to examine the cut and darkening bump on MacGregor’s forehead. “I asked you about the basement stairs, and boom, you’d been taken out by Dickens. I suppose we should be grateful it wasn’t a compendium.”
“Do you have a first aid kit?” Darnell asked.
“I know there’s one somewhere. It’s not worth looking for now. I’m okay.”
Darnell frowned. “But—“
MacGregor waved a hand in the air. “Don’t stress it. Are you… do I need to get beds made up for you? Do you spend the night?”
“I’m thinking you should come stay with us,” Jason suggested. “We all need to get out of this house, do some more research, and come back tomorrow with clear heads. I’m sure we can find you a bed with one of us.”
“I’ve got a pull-out couch,” Will admitted.
“Oh, I don’t want to put anyone out. That seems unkind.”
“Leaving you here seems unkind,” Will countered. Big, renovated, sprawling, and fucking creepy. He caught sight of the lump on MacGregor’s head. And dangerous.
MacGregor went bright pink, but Will thought he looked pleased.
“Come on. Let’s go buy you a cup of coffee and talk about our next steps,” Jason suggested.
“I could use a cup of coffee,” MacGregor admitted. “Yeah. And maybe a bite of something sweet.”
“Perfect, there’s the diner on Swanson that’ll still be open and have exactly what we’re looking for.” Jason sounded pleased with MacGregor’s decision.
The man nodded and winced slightly, putting his hand to his head for a moment. “I’d like that. A nice little outing.”
“All right, let’s go.” Jason made ushering motions toward the front of the house.
“You want me to keep filming?” Will asked, wondering if the door was going to open for them this time.
“Yep. We’ll need establishing shots and whatnot. I think it’ll work well to have them be from our first outing here.”
“Sure thing, Jase.” Will couldn’t help but wonder, though, if Jason was thinking along the same lines as him. If they got some resistance when they tried to walk out the door, he wanted that documented.
MacGregor grabbed a windbreaker and his wallet and keys, then headed to the door, a look of determination on his face. Looked like MacGregor wasn’t a hundred percent sure they were going to be allowed out either.
The rest of them followed MacGregor, and Will made sure to get a shot of everyone’s face before they actually got to the door. They all exhibited pretty much full-on curiosity, though Blaine had that slightly out of it look he got whenever something was communicating with him… or trying to. Once Will had filmed all the teams’ facial expressions, he panned the camera back to MacGregor.
MacGregor’s lips tightened, and his mouth moved, the man saying something before he reached for the door and yanked at it. The door opened easily—so easily in fact that MacGregor almost went flying back against the wall. At the same time, there was an expression of relief on MacGregor’s face, and as soon as he’d steadied himself, he went through the door like the hounds of hell were chasing him.
Will and the team headed out more sedately, and MacGregor pulled the door closed behind them and locked it. Will had to wonder if the lock was even necessary. Anyone idiotic enough to try and break into the place would be in for a rude awakening when they were either beaned in the head by a book or locked in.
MacGregor double-checked the door handle before clearing his throat. “Okay. Coffee. Pie. I’ll follow you.”
“You got it.” Jason and the others headed toward the van.
Will finally turned the camera off and stowed it as they all climbed in. He started the engine and pulled onto the road to head toward the diner without checking to see if MacGregor was behind them or not. The guy knew where they were going, right?
“So,” Jason began. “What do you think, Blaine?”
“I think he’s in trouble. I think the fact that he could have this happen and never blink? I mean the guy got knocked out by a flying book and said ‘these things happen.’ That’s weird, guys. Intense. He needs help. Something is working on him. And well-intentioned or not, that kind of thing is going to affect you.”
“There’s more than one ghost, though, isn’t there?” Jason asked. “I mean, it felt like there was something positive as well as negative going on there.”
“That’s sort of my thought—that Payne’s caught in the middle of a fight that isn’t his.” Blaine leaned against Flynn. “Ghosts can be good and bad, but this really felt like two different things.”
“That sounds sucky.” Will checked the rearview to see if MacGregor’s headlights were there. They were. The guy drove a simple dark SUV. Will was pretty sure it was a BMW or some other luxury vehicle.
“You think the meanness comes out because he’s gay?” Will asked. Though really, wouldn’t it just be trying to drive him away if that was the case? He supposed if it was a relative, they could be upset about having someone gay in the family….
“What’s with you and the whole mean thing, Will?” Jason asked. “He’s been perfectly decent.”
“I meant on the part of the ghosts, butthead.” Although he supposed he deserved the accusation. He hadn’t been overly friendly, and he couldn’t explain why. MacGregor had rubbed him wrong on first sight.
“Oh.” Jason turned bright pink. “Maybe? Blaine?”
“I can’t help. I’ve got nothing on that, guys. Sorry.”
“It was just a thought,” Will said. “Given it seems these are old-soul entities, right?” The world had changed a lot since MacGregor’s grandmother had died.
Blaine nodded. “I can agree that they’ve been there a long time. And that we’re talking more than one ghost.”
“Makes sense to me,” Darnell said. “I mean, that house is… wow.”
“Yeah,” Will agreed. “Hell, we’ve been driving past it for years wondering what kind of ghosts it might be harboring. It’s kind of cool we’re getting to go through it now.” It would have been cooler if there weren’t bad stuff there, but they’d seen the general history—you couldn’t expect happy ghosts coming out of something like that.
“It would be nicer if the owner wasn’t caught up in it like he is,” Jason pointed out.
“Yeah, yeah. Honestly, I don’t have anything against him,” Will told the guys. He had no clue why he’d taken such a dislike to MacGregor; after all, he didn’t even know the guy.
“You think the ghosts were affecting you, man?” Jason asked.
Oh God. Will hadn’t even considered that, and the thought of it sent a shiver through him. “I don’t know.” It certainly wasn’t like him to be as big an ass as he’d been, especially without reason. He was a nice guy.
“Maybe…. Maybe we should keep you out of the house,” Jason suggested softly.
He turned to glare at Jason. “Really? I apologized to the man.” He was the cameraman for fuck’s sake. He was a part of the team, and he was not going to wait out in the van like some naughty kid in a time-out.
“I meant if the spirits were messing with you, it might be better for you to stay out of their way, buttmunch.”
“We never tell Blaine he can’t go somewhere when they start messing with him. Besides, now that I know it might be a possibility, I’ll be on my guard against them.” Although he wasn’t sure exactly how to do that if he was honest. He hadn’t felt like he’d been… taken over or anything. He hadn’t noticed any outside influence at all.
Maybe he’d talk privately to Blaine later on, see what he could do to keep from being influenced by anything malevolent. Sage and salt in his underwear, maybe, although that would chafe. A little chafing was probably worth not having a spirit using him, though. Just the idea of having a spirit using him made him want to gag. If that’s what it had been. He guessed it was a better option than the idea that he’d just been a fucking asshole for no reason, though.
He pulled into the parking lot of the Silver Flyer Diner. He needed a beer. Or two.
MacGregor pulled in next to them, the man weirdly dapper with his neatly trimmed dark beard and his little round glasses. He looked almost old-fashioned. Like he belonged to the era when the MacGregor house had been in its heyday.
Now, was that the guy’s style, or was it because of the house? Of course, MacGregor was a librarian. That didn’t lend itself to modern, did it? Will probably wasn’t the right person to start interrogating MacGregor over his choice of clothing, though, given the circumstances.