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.