Chapter Twelve
FLYNN sat with Jason in the living room, going through all the research they had already collected on room 204. They hadn’t gone too deep into it; they hadn’t needed to really for their purposes.
All they knew was the basics. Two gay guys in the eighties. One got sick with a brain tumor—Christian Singer—and his family had told the hospital not to let David Swans in under any circumstances. When Christian died, David killed himself. In the hospital room. Room 204.
A shiver went down Flynn’s spine.
There wasn’t much—a couple of newspaper articles, a mention of David Swans’s sister, two obituaries that listed totally separate families.
“Is this everything you found on the internet, or did you just do the basics?” Flynn needed to know where to start looking.
“There’s not much. It was pre-internet. Daisy Swans, the sister listed, is living in Australia now. The Singer family just disappeared. I mean, I bet they had friends, but….” Jason shrugged.
“Well, let’s put their names in a search together and see what we can find. We can hit the library up next for the newspapers.”
“Sure.” Jason sighed. “You really think they’re active, these two? I mean, you’ve got the violent death downstairs….”
“Yeah, but….” He didn’t want to give Blaine up, so he shrugged in turn. “I have a feeling.”
“Cool. Do you think it has to do with the bite? That thing’s prodigious.”
“Yeah, I really think it does.” He cleared his throat. “Okay, so this is going to sound a little out there, but let me talk it through. I think he was bitten by a ghost. Flies don’t lay eggs in live flesh, only dead flesh. So how did the maggot get inside him? It was in the thing that bit him’s teeth.” Yeah, okay, it sounded a little out there. But then the whole thing was out there.
“Okay, so yeah. Out there, but worse than that—really fucking scary.”
“I know. But I can’t see any other explanation. I mean, I didn’t bite him, and something definitely happened to him in the ER. You were there. You saw him.”
“Yeah. Yeah, so, what? What do we do?”
“I don’t know. Learn everything about Christian, David, and room 204. See how it’s connected. If it’s connected.”
“But if it is? What do we do then? I mean, silver and sage?”
Flynn nodded. “To start with. We’ll look up everything we can find on putting them to rest.”
“Well, that’s better than letting them eat us. I mean, seriously, what if there’s an attack? If we can’t get it on camera….”
Flynn nodded. Blaine would be happy if he wasn’t the only one not wanting to go back. But Flynn hated just leaving it. Something was there, going on, and he wanted to figure it out. Help, if it was a situation where they could. “We definitely need to be careful. No unnecessary risks.”
“Rock on. By the way, are you looking for a day job, man? There’s an opening at my call center.”
“Doing what exactly?” His frugality meant he had savings still. He’d been paying rent with it, but he preferred not to dig into it too deep if he could help it. As long as he had a roof over his head and food enough, he liked to save that kind of thing for a rainy day.
“Answering phone calls, helping people out. There’s a lot of calming angry customers down for the most part.”
“I’m not sure I’m the calming-angry-customers-down kind of guy. I appreciate the offer, though. Can I let you know?” He supposed the hours would be pretty flexible, which was always a good thing when coupled with the ghost hunting.
“Sure. I like to hit my friends up first, you know? Sometimes the hours suck, but it’s a job.”
“I hear you. I guess we aren’t getting any cash flow soon on the actual ghost hunting, eh?”
“Not yet. I’m working at it. The last bit of footage with Blaine acting like a psycho is pretty cool, and so is the story of the bite. I’m thinking about taking him out there to ‘get bit’ on-screen.”
“Not without me.” He looked Jason in the eye. “Promise me you won’t do anything like that, just the two of you—that you’ll bring me along.”
“Sure. I’ll need someone to run the camera, right?”
“Right.” He wasn’t sure it was a good idea to fake something like that, but he figured they could revisit it later. For now, he just wanted the guarantee that Jason wouldn’t take Blaine to the hospital without him.
Jason stretched and went back to his laptop, slowly running videos from their visits. “Where’s Blaine? He should be done at the stall by now, huh?”
Flynn glanced at his watch. “Huh. Yeah, he should. Maybe he went to see his folks.” He grabbed his phone and texted, where u at?
bringing food. Mom made stew
yum!
“He’s on his way with stew from his mom.” Flynn’s stomach growled, and he realized he’d skipped lunch.
“Rock on! I hope she sends cornbread too.” Jason grinned at Flynn. “We used to love that when we were all in school. Coming out here for food.”
“Like you don’t still love it.” Blaine’s mom was a fantastic cook.
“God, my favorite is chicken parm day.”
“That sounds great. I haven’t had that yet. I have to admit, there’s nothing like home cooking from someone’s mom.”
“Oh dude. My mom is the queen of takeout—Chinese, pizza, Greek, curry.”
Flynn laughed, shook his head, but he had to wonder a little bit—had Jason and Blaine been lovers? Darnell? Any of them?
“So, an all-gay ghost-hunting team. Did that just happen, or was it deliberate?” He tried to keep his tone casual.
“It was six of one, half dozen of another. We were all friends because we’re gay. It was me and Blaine who started talking about the ghost hunting.”
“Were you ever together?” Keep it smooth. Keep it casual. He glanced over, trying not to look too interested.
“Together? We said we were dating in high school, shared a couple of hand jobs, and then decided we didn’t do it for each other.”
Flynn chuckled, more relieved than he was willing to say. He was about to make some glib joke about it being awkward to have work relationships anyway, but then he realized he was in one, so it would be better not to make the joke. Of course, he didn’t consider what he and Blaine had as a work thing.
“Seriously, it’s cool if you two are a thing. Blaine’s a decent guy. A little down on his luck, but aren’t we all?”
“Some would say that’s what we get for being ghost hunters.” Flynn grinned. “I happen to think the world is waiting for five gay guys hunting ghosts, and we just need the right circumstances and bam, we’ll be bigger than the Village People.”
“Oh dude.” Jason’s eyes lit up. “Do you think we can get Blaine to wear the leather-daddy outfit?”
“You absolutely cannot.” Blaine was at the screen door. “Let me in, you freaks.”
Flynn popped up off the floor, cackling like a loon as he went to open the door for Blaine. “You would look really hot, man.”
“Shut up. What the hell are you two talking about?”
“How we could be the Village People of ghost hunting.” There was nothing abnormal about that, right?
“The Village People… wow. Stew?”
Flynn laughed and grabbed the pot from Blaine. “Are those homemade rolls too? Your mom is a treasure.”
“She’s feeling better. Seriously. It’s so fucking cool.”
“Excellent. How about you?” Jase asked. “How’s the shoulder?”
Flynn peered at Blaine’s shoulder, but he couldn’t pull the shirt or sweater back with his hands full of the pot of stew. “You need me to doctor it?”
“I will, yeah, but after. Jase, grab bowls.”
They all helped, dishing up the stew and gathering utensils, putting out the bread and butter.
“I love that you have butter instead of margarine. It always tastes better, especially if the bread—rolls—are homemade.” Flynn grabbed glasses and pulled the milk out of the fridge.
“Oh, do not get Mom started on the horrors of oleo, huh?”
“No margarine talk with your mom. Got it.” He gave Blaine a wink, sat, and dug into his stew. Damn—rich and thick and peppery and stunning, it tasted like heaven in a bowl.
“God, this is good. How do you get to become a good cook like this? Because I’m an okay cook, but this is amazing.”
“I think it’s a mom thing,” Blaine said. “I mean, maybe your mom skipped those lessons, Jase.”
“She totally must have. I mean, you’ve seen her actually burn boiling water.”
“Seriously?” Flynn asked, laughing when Jase nodded.
“It caught fire, man! Fire.”
He cackled, and Blaine chuckled along with him. “Seriously.”
Blaine nodded. “Yep. Actual fire. We put it out with the extinguisher.”
“That’s….” Flynn just stared. “Wow.”
He looked up and met Blaine’s eyes, and they both laughed. Flynn really loved Blaine’s laughter, and he knew he wanted to spend a lot of time hearing it.
“So we’re talking about going back to the hospital and filming you getting bit, man. Thoughts?” Jason asked.
“Is that kosher?”
“Are we going to ever break into a deal if we don’t do better?”
Flynn sighed. “I’m not against going back to the hospital. I’m just not sure about faking the bite, man. Anyone finds out we did that and we lose all credibility.”
“You don’t think all those guys with shows don’t go back and film pickups and stuff for their narrative?”
Flynn didn’t know. He just wasn’t sure it was something they should start.
“We can at least film the bite now, right? Show what happened.”
Blaine nodded once, just a dip of his chin. “That I can do.”
“Yeah, I’m down with that too.” Flynn could get behind the truth.
“You guys are two peas in a pod. Seriously.”
Flynn grinned over at Blaine. “We’re peas, apparently.”
“Podlike peas.” Blaine began to chuckle.
Flynn’s lips twitched. “Wait, wouldn’t that make us aliens? Shouldn’t we be more like ghostlike things?”
“Ghost peas?” Jason pursed his lips. “I’m not sure. Ghost Peas sounds like a band name.”
“Maybe that’s what we should call the team. You know, to sell us. Blaine the Brain and the Ghost Peas investigate yet another haunted building.” Flynn was cracking his own shit up.
“Oh my God. We need a website—Brain and the Ghost Peas!” Jason was howling.
Flynn gave Blaine a private smile, reaching out and touching his hand, and Blaine twined their fingers together.
Oh God, were they basking? It felt like they were. He rather liked it. Hell, he loved the idea that he had someone here, someone to bask with. Someone not in the hospital with bugs in his shoulder.
He squeezed Blaine’s hand. “Hey, Pea.”
“Do you want to be Pea Two or Pod?”
“I’ll be the Pod to your Pea any day.”
Jason snorted. “You two are gross.”
“Hey, you’re the one who said we were two peas in a pod. We’re just playing along.” Goofing about.
“Yeah, and I’m wicked jealous, just FYI….”
“Oh. Um, sorry.” Flynn felt bad now, like they’d been flaunting it in Jason’s face.
Blaine smirked. “Don’t be. He rubs my face in his boyfriends whenever I’m single.”
“Oho. You do, do you, Jason?” Flynn threw a corner of his bread at Jason. “Butthead.”
“Well… okay. Yeah. I totally have.”
All three of them laughed and went back to their food.
Flynn sopped up the last of his stew with his bread. “We had just started looking into Christian and David. The guys associated with room 204.”
“Did you find anything?” Blaine looked worried.
“Not yet. We hadn’t really gotten very far into it.”
“Well, I know it’s a sad fucking story, right?”
“Yeah. Christian was sick, and his family wouldn’t let his lover visit. He finally got in to see him and it was too late, so he killed himself. Kinda Romeo and Juliet, eh?”
“Yeah. Creepy.” Blaine shivered, arms wrapping around himself.
Flynn put his hand on Blaine’s shoulder and squeezed. “It is. And if they need help getting to rest, we’ll do that for them, okay?”
“Yeah.” Blaine didn’t sound so sure.
“What’s wrong, babe? This whole thing has had you on edge big-time.”
“I just…. There’s something wrong.” Blaine shook his head, then stood and started cleaning up the dishes, shoulders hunched.
Flynn got up and went over to his lover. He didn’t even bother with the pretext of bringing more dishes. “So talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong. I can’t help if you won’t talk to me.”
“I just think we should let it go. Leave them alone.”
“But….” He wasn’t sure he was going to be able to just forget everything.
“Room 204.”
Shit. “I’m not sure it’s going to leave us alone.”
“It will. They have to.”
Jason stood, frowned. “Did you two hear that?”
“Room 204.”
Flynn whipped his head around to Jason. “You heard it too?” Okay. This was happening. That was all three of them now, not just him and Blaine.
“I’m fucking calling the rest of the guys. Someone turn on the tape recorders.”
“Room 204.”
“Room 204.”
“Room 204.”
It repeated over and over again, and Flynn went for the equipment stored in the dining room, looking for the recorders.
“It won’t matter. They won’t pick it up.”
“They’ll pick us up, though, and we’re hearing it.” Jason grabbed his phone, and punched his finger at the screen.
Flynn brought the recorders into the kitchen and turned them on. The room number continued to be repeated, sometimes a whisper, sometimes louder, and honestly, it was beginning to freak him out.
“You think we should go back and check out room 204?” Surely that would put an end to this.
“No!” Blaine looked weird for a second, wild.
Flynn went up to him. “Babe. You have to tell me what’s going on. And don’t tell me it’s nothing. Every time room 204 comes up, you freak the hell out.”
“You can’t go in there, David!”
David. He hadn’t imagined it this time for sure. Blaine had called him David. Which was the name of one of the couple. The guy who’d killed himself.
“Why not, Christian?” Flynn asked, playing along for a moment to see if he could actually get more out of Blaine.
“You know why. You know. You know they’ll kill you. You know that. He’ll kill you.”
“They? He? Who? Who will kill me?”
“You know.” Suddenly Blaine’s bright blue eyes turned dark, almost brown. Like they had physically changed color. Weird.
“No. No, I don’t know. You have to tell me.” Oh God. This was insane. It was fucking creepy.
“Blaine? Blaine, what the fuck is wrong with you?” Jason stormed over, grabbed Blaine’s arm, and shook him hard.
“Don’t!” Flynn pushed Jason away. “We have to figure out what’s going on.” Then he turned his attention back to Blaine. “Come on, Christian. You have to tell me. You have to. Come on, now. Tell me.”
Blaine looked at him, blinked. “Tell you what?”
Flynn sighed, seeing nobody but Blaine there. “You’re back, huh? For a minute there I swear you were Christian, and you were actually going to tell me what the deal with room 204 is.”
Blaine frowned. “Stop it.”
Jason stared. “It’s true, man. Seriously.”
Flynn nodded. “You called me David. You responded to Christian. You were saying that he or they were going to kill me, and that’s why you didn’t want me to go to room 204.” It made Blaine wince every time Flynn spoke about that room.
“Just stop it.” Blaine shook his head. “Stop saying the room number.”
“Then tell me what’s got you so freaked out!”
“Shit, why shouldn’t he be freaked? We heard someone who wasn’t there saying things here in the barn!” Jason wasn’t helping.
“I agree, Jason, but I’d like to know what he knows.”
“I don’t know anything. I didn’t do anything, man.”
Flynn sighed. “I don’t like this. I don’t like it at all. It’s like this thing gets a hold of you, and there’s something there but it won’t let you tell.”
“Darnell is on the way,” Jason noted. “Will has to finish his shift, but he’ll be here in a few hours.”
“We’ll get everything set up and see if we can’t figure out what the fuck is going on.” Flynn started pacing, trying to work everything out.
Blaine began to pace too, striding the length of the island in the kitchen. Every now and then they met up and did the “you go, no you go first” dance.
“So what should we do? More research, or are you not telling us stuff, Blaine?”
Blaine looked at him, cheeks going bright pink. “Excuse me?”
“I don’t know if you only know it when Christian takes you over or if you’re just scared to tell me, but there’s stuff that you aren’t telling me. Stuff about room 204.”
Jason stared at them both like they were crazy.
“What? What stuff? What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Christian and David and room 204!” Flynn looked into Blaine’s eyes. “Tell me about room 204.”
Blaine ripped away from him and stormed upstairs. A moment later the bedroom door slammed shut.
“Goddammit.” Flynn followed him and stood outside the door. “Blaine! Blaine, we can’t just ignore this! It isn’t going away!”
“Leave me the fuck alone!”
“Don’t be like this, Blaine. Please? Come on. We need to deal with this.”
He heard something hit the door, and then he heard sobs. He turned the door handle, cursing when it wouldn’t budge. Blaine had locked it.
Flynn banged on the door. “Come on, Blaine. Let me in. You can’t keep shutting me out.” Something bad was going to happen.
Maybe something bad was happening now.
Jason’s voice came from downstairs. “Blaine? Flynn? Do you guys need me up there?”
“Let me see if I can get him to let me in.” Flynn banged on the door again. “Blaine? Let me in or we’re breaking the door down.” Maybe he was appealing to the wrong person. What if Christian had hold of him again? What if Blaine was hurt?
“This is my room, dammit!”
“Blaine! I mean it. We need you with us, not hiding up here alone where anything could happen to you.”
The door flew open, and Flynn noticed immediately that Blaine’s shoulder was bleeding again, a slowly expanding red spot on his shirt.
“Jesus. Did you hit your shoulder on something? Sit. Let me look at it.”
“I’m not going to be accused of withholding information about some fucking assholes who died before I was even born!”
“I don’t think you’re doing it on purpose, babe. I think there’s something here. Something… I don’t know. Let me look. Let me see.” He went over and tugged at Blaine’s shirt.
Jesus. The wound was torn open again. Fuck.
“Were you scratching at it?” Flynn carefully removed Blaine’s shirt, then called downstairs, “Jason? Bring me the first aid kit, please.”
“Is he hurt again? Christ. Come downstairs.”
Flynn rolled his eyes and looked at Blaine’s shoulder more closely. It was a bloody mess, like someone had been scratching at it for ages. “Did you do this? Were you scratching?”
“When? Between slamming the door and walking across the room?”
“I don’t know! It’s all open and bloody like someone’s been tearing at it, and if it wasn’t you….” He met Blaine’s eyes. “This is moving into fucking scary, love.”
“I know.” Blaine looked exhausted, frightened, more than a little lost.
Flynn hugged Blaine tight, careful not to touch the bloody mess. “Don’t shut me out, okay? We need to face this together. And obviously we can’t ignore it.” Something wanted them to go to room 204, and it was getting vicious about it.
“You can’t go there. You can’t. It’s a terrible idea.”
“I get that. I don’t know why you think that, but I get that you feel really strongly about it. And I’m more than willing to try work-arounds. But it really seems like all this scary shit isn’t going to stop unless we do.” And Flynn wanted as much information as he could get. He wanted Blaine to tell him what he knew. Or what he thought he knew.
“I don’t understand what the hell is going on. I don’t get it, but I know that you can’t go, that it’s dangerous. I know.” Blaine grabbed him, squeezed him. “You just have to believe in me.”
“I do believe in you. That’s why I’m willing to try to do as much as we can here. See if we can’t get rid of whatever it is that’s… doing this shit.”
“I don’t even know what to do.”
“Stick together, hmm?” He hugged Blaine tight. “Come on. Let’s go down and get you doctored and start researching.”
“Darnell’s pulling up now, guys,” Jason called.
“The troops are all rallying around. We’re going to be okay. We’ve got friends, people who are in our corner.”
“I don’t even know what—”
“Shh. Shh, please. Let’s just stay calm. Focused, huh? We’re going to wire up the barn and figure out what the hell is going on here. We have the know-how.” Flynn kissed Blaine good and hard, smashing their lips together.
Blaine’s eyes went wide, and then he wrapped one arm around Flynn’s waist. Flynn let himself get lost in the kiss, in Blaine’s taste.
“Guys. Guys, seriously? Now?” Jason sounded close by and… shocked.
Groaning, Flynn broke off the kiss, cutting a glance back at Jason, who was now standing in the bedroom doorway. “It’s never a bad thing to remember what you’re fighting for.”
Jason made a kissy face. “Man, if I’d known Flynn was gonna be so hot, I would have made a play for him.”
“Fuck off, Jase.”
Heat climbed Flynn’s cheeks. “He’s in the room.”
“And he’s a little stud,” Blaine said.
Flynn’s mouth dropped open, and he turned to stare at Blaine. Then he smiled. “You think I’m a stud?”
“Duh.” The response was gratifyingly immediate.
He kissed Blaine again. “Thank you.”
“Freaks. God. So jealous.” Jason made Flynn chuckle.
“Okay. Let’s get downstairs and doctor your shoulder and then set up to catch whatever it is that’s haunting us and send it back to hell.” They trooped down, Flynn being careful Blaine didn’t trip.
“What’s going on?” Darnell came bursting through the door, four pizza boxes in hand. He delivered for a living and got to keep any mismade pies. “Blaine’s back is bad again, and something is haunting the barn. It keeps saying ‘room 204’ over and over again. I heard it.” Jason sounded pretty excited.
“No shit? Did you catch it on tape?”
“We set them up, but hadn’t caught anything as of last night,” Flynn noted.
“Let’s check it out.” Jason grinned and grabbed half the pizza boxes.
“After I doctor Blaine’s shoulder,” Flynn added.
“I’m fine.”
“Did you know they were together, man?” Jason asked Darnell, looking smug as they set the pizzas down.
“Who, Flynn and Blaine? How long?”
Jason looked at him and Blaine, and Flynn shrugged. “A few days.”
“Before or after Monday?” Darnell asked.
“What does…?”
Blaine rolled his eyes. “There’s a bet.”
Darnell nodded. “Will owes me ten bucks if it was before Monday.”
“Seriously?”
“Totally. Ten bucks is ten bucks.”
Flynn shook his head. “That’s not classy at all.”
Darnell snorted. “We hunt ghosts, and you two live in a barn. We aren’t exactly the height of class here. Besides, it’s not like either of us was wrong—you guys are doing the deed.”
Blaine snorted, and suddenly, blessedly, they were all laughing, howling with it.
“Will totally owes you ten bucks,” Flynn admitted, and they all burst into laughter again.
“And here I was told there was an emergency,” Will said, coming in with the rest of their equipment. “Not Laugh-In.”
“You owe me a tenner, man. Did you see Blaine’s shoulder?”
“Oh.” Will turned green. “No. No way. No looking. I don’t do blood.”
“Well then, look away. I have to doctor it.” Flynn sat Blaine down and began patting at the blood. “You swear you didn’t scratch at it? Because it’s not pus-y, but it’s been opened up.”
“I didn’t touch it. Just close it back up. We have more butterfly bandages.”
“I know, but someone—” He looked at the others. “—or something did.” They needed to get this figured out before anything worse happened to Blaine.
“For real?” Will asked. “I mean, you guys aren’t just fucking with us?”
Jason shook his head. “No way. I heard it too.”
“Heard what?” Will asked, looking at each of them in turn.
“Room 204,” Jason said. “And it wasn’t any of us.”
“Yeah.” Flynn shivered. “Over and over again. And I think that the bug in Blaine’s shoulder came from a ghost bite too.”
Will looked at them like they were crazy. “Blaine? Are you with them on this?”
“I don’t know. Ghosts don’t…. I mean, I just don’t know.”
“Then how do you explain it?” Flynn asked. “I’d be happy for alternatives, believe me. But if this is a prank or something, well, then you guys must have pissed someone off pretty good. Have you?” He looked at each of the guys in turn.
“A prank? How do you make this a prank?” Will and Darnell looked confused as hell, while Jason seemed ramped up.
“Well, that’s my best alternative to it being real. What’s yours?” Ghost or not, this was happening, and it was physically hurting Blaine and freaking them all out on top of that.
Will looked at Darnell, who shrugged. “I got nothing, man.”
“Let’s get the equipment set up and see what we get.” Flynn left Blaine’s T-shirt off, the white of the Band-Aids stark against his skin.
“Like I said before, I want us to shoot Blaine’s wound too,” Jason added. “Just to have a record.”
“Yeah,” Flynn agreed. “Then we can show any changes that happen there too. Like how it now looks like someone scratched his skin open.” Flynn chewed on his lower lip, nerves eating at him.
“I didn’t do it, Flynn.” Blaine looked so serious.
“I believe you, babe. That’s what makes this so worrying. Something did. And if it can do that, who knows what else? I really don’t want to find out it can harm you even more than it has already.” He took Blaine’s hand and squeezed. “We are going to figure this out. That’s what we do, right?”
“I work on a farm and try to talk to ghosts on camera.”
“We actually hunt for the ghosts, though, right? We want proof that there’s specters haunting the places we go to? So we’re going to find evidence here, if there’s any to be found.” Though again, he was hard-pressed for any other reason why they were all hearing voices and Blaine had developed a bite that had turned into a bug’s burrow, and was now a sore that seemed to be getting bigger on its own.
“So let’s lay it all out for the camera.” Flynn nodded at Will, who hoisted the camera on his shoulder, the little red light blinking on to indicate it was taping. “You want to explain what we’re doing here, Blaine? Just like you would if we were out on a case.”
“Sure.” Blaine grabbed a T-shirt from the pile in the laundry basket in the hall and slipped it on before looking into the lens. “Hey, guys. This is my house—and four days ago we noticed a little bite on my shoulder.”
Flynn tried not to make a face because he knew Blaine didn’t like thinking about the maggot that had been inside him.
When Blaine didn’t explain further, though, he figured he should, as he was the one who’d had the best view of the thing. “It was a pretty big bite, actually. Looked like a human bite, and it had broken the skin. It was warm to the touch, and an area about the size of the bottom of a beer can was quite red. So we decided to doctor it by pouring some hydrogen peroxide on it—make sure it was cleaned out.”
Blaine continued. “I pushed on it and… man, there were bugs in it. Seriously, bugs.”
Flynn didn’t bother to correct Blaine that it had been one worm. That had been awful enough. “So we went to the hospital, and they checked it and pumped him full of antibiotics and sent him home. Now nobody has touched the wound except to change the Band-Aids, but now it looks like someone has been tearing at Blaine’s skin.”
Will moved in with the camera, and Jason pulled back the edges of the butterfly bandages to show the sore.
“Dude…. That’s nasty.”
“Don’t say that!”
Flynn shook his head. “It actually looks clean. I mean, it’s covering a bigger area, but it’s not nasty. Why don’t you tell them about room 204,” Flynn suggested to get Blaine’s mind off his shoulder.
“In 1984, Christian Singer died in room 204 from a brain tumor, and the family kept his lover, David Swans, from saying goodbye. By the time David got in to see Christian, it was too late.”
“Assholes,” muttered Darnell, and the others added their approval.
“It gets worse, though, doesn’t it?” Flynn prompted.
Blaine nodded. “David died in the hospital. In that room. Standing next to his lover’s body.”
“How did he die?” Flynn asked. Blaine was still being recalcitrant about sharing information on room 204, and Flynn was going to prod him until he’d divulged everything he knew. At this point, they all needed to be on the same page.
Blaine shook his head, and then they heard, “Room 204!”
“Did you hear that?” Flynn asked, looking into the camera. “None of us said that.”
“Room 204.”
“Blaine, I think you need to tell us what happened to David. How did he die?”
“How should I know? You guys looked it up.”
Jason went to the laptop. “I think he committed suicide, yeah?”
“Room 204.”
“Are you hearing this?” Will asked.
“I’m hearing it. In case you’re not picking it up at home, we’re hearing a voice saying room 204 over and over again.” And the more Blaine resisted, the louder it seemed to get.
“Yeah, he shot himself in the head.”
“Room 204.”
Blaine dropped his head into his hands. “It hurts.”
“We’re trying to figure out what’s here with us, and why it’s hurting Blaine, and how to get rid of it.” Flynn was worried the only way they were going to succeed was to go back to the hospital, but Blaine was resisting that big-time.
“Dude. Flynn, grab a Kleenex. His nose is bleeding.”
“Shit!”
Flynn grabbed some tissues and handed them to Blaine. “The more you resist talking about room 204, the more you wind up hurting.” He knew Blaine didn’t want to hear it, but it was what was happening. He had observational data on it now. “Don’t stop taping, Will.”
“I won’t. I’m getting it all.”
“Me too.” Darnell was taping from a different angle.
Flynn stayed with Blaine, made sure his nose stopped bleeding. He summarized for the camera while he was doing it. “So we have the medical death of one man and the suicide of his lover. All of this happened in room 204.”
“Room 204.”
“And someone or something seems to want us to investigate. I have a hunch it’s not going to stop unless we go to the hospital and check out the actual room 204.”
Blaine shook his head. “It’s a bad idea.”
“Room 204.”
“Room 204.”
“Room 204!”
It was shouted this time, and Flynn frowned, shook his head. “I’m not sure we have a choice. Whatever is here is hurting you, Blaine. We need to get this dealt with.”
Darnell’s face was gray, eyes huge. “I don’t like this, guys.”
“No, none of us do.” Flynn hated it, in fact. He wished it was happening to him and not Blaine. He still wouldn’t have been happy about it, but then at least Blaine would be safe. “But it came to us. Or followed us home or something.”
“Do we have footage of that room, man? From before?” Darnell looked to Jason, eyebrows arched.
Jason shook his head. “No. I don’t think we spent any time in there aside from some prelim stuff. Man, we should have checked the place out better.”
“No, we were up there. Me and Blaine, what, a year ago? You remember, man? Long time ago,” Darnell said.
Flynn looked to Blaine. “You have more to tell us about 204? Come on, babe, not talking is killing you.”
“We went in, filmed. It was just another room.”
“But you’re trying to keep me away from that room. You keep telling me how dangerous it is and asking me to stay away from it. How would you know if you were hardly in there and it’s just another room?”
“It’s just a bad idea, you know?” Blaine looked so serious.
“I believe you, babe. But look around us—look at yourself. Not doing anything isn’t an option anymore.”
“Let’s look up the footage. I’ll call Jill and ask.” Jason grabbed his phone.
“We could always move out,” Flynn suggested. “Pack up and go across the country. I’m sure they’ve got haunted buildings on the West Coast.” It wasn’t really a suggestion, more of a tease, but the voice suddenly started screaming “Room 204!” over and over.
Blaine clapped his hands over his ears, and Darnell just headed for the door.
“Stop that!” he shouted. “We’re trying to figure it out, so just stop!”
“This is fucked up. We’re taking the stuff and heading to my place. Now.” Jason started grabbing laptops and camera cases.
Flynn was torn between wanting to get to the bottom of this and wanting to get away from it. He took one look at Blaine, whose nose had started bleeding again, and nodded. “Okay. Yeah. Let’s do it.”
“They’ve been there since the ’80s. Let’s go. We’ll call Blaine’s folks from my place.”
Flynn put his hand on Blaine’s thigh. “You want me to throw some of your stuff into a bag, babe?” He was pretty sure Blaine hadn’t even heard him.
“Grab his medical shit, and I’ll grab the pizzas.”
Flynn dashed upstairs and threw a change of clothes for both of them into a bag, along with the stuff for Blaine’s shoulder and their Kindles. He swore he could still hear “Room 204” echoing through the place, but he was putting that down to his imagination.
All the what-ifs ran through his head, maddening as a bunch of bees buzzing in his skin.
The biggest one was what if something happened to Blaine. What if this injured him worse than he already was?
Flynn shook himself and joined the guys out at Will’s van, letting Blaine lock the barn. Jase and Darnell had their own cars there in the driveway. “Who are you two riding with?” Jase asked.
“Will has more room in the van, I guess,” Flynn replied. “Here, Blaine. You take the front seat.” He opened the door for Blaine, who was already looking less pained.
Blaine climbed in without an argument and settled with his eyes closed.
Flynn hated what this was doing to Blaine. This was way more serious than any of them had signed on for. They were supposed to look for and document ghosts, not find themselves in the middle of a horror movie.
“This is some crazy shit. Do you think you were the catalyst, Flynn?” Will swung up into the seat and then started the van as Flynn climbed in.
“Me?” Of course it had started when he’d joined the team. They’d been to the hospital without him plenty of times already. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
“Hey, if you are, it’s not like you’re at fault, huh?”
“Sure, that’s easy to say.” He chewed his lower lip. “Blaine doesn’t want me anywhere near room 204. I mean, like, violently doesn’t want it. But every time he says that or refuses to talk about stuff, that damn voice starts up again.”
“We’ll figure it out, all five of us.” Will grinned at him, winked. “Right, Blaine?”
Blaine shook his head. “You have to stay away from room 204. It’s not safe.”
This again. Flynn sighed. “I don’t know. Not going seems pretty dangerous too.”
Blaine turned and pinned him with a sure look. “It’s important.”
“Explain to me how not going to room 204 is more important than going so we can get rid of whatever it is that’s haunting our asses. I won’t go if you don’t want me to, Blaine—but you can’t just say ‘it’s dangerous.’ You have to tell me why I can’t go.”
“I don’t know! I just know.”
Will gave him a look in the rearview mirror, but Flynn ignored him in favor of leaning in and grabbing Blaine’s arm, giving it a squeeze. “Okay, babe. Okay. I will promise you that I will be really careful, and that I won’t go to room 204 without letting you know.” He wasn’t going to promise not to go at all, because what if that was the only way to save Blaine? If that was the case, then dammit, he was doing it.
“Thank you. Thank you, honey.” Blaine relaxed, went boneless.
Christ, he didn’t understand what was going on. Not at all. It wouldn’t have been so bad—oh, it still would have grated; he was into finding things out and exposing them after all—but it was clearly hurting Blaine, and that meant he couldn’t just ignore it.
He put his head back and closed his eyes as Will drove them to Jase’s place.
At least the damn voice screaming room 204 at them had finally quieted.