In the Dark, Part 1

If you weren’t such a cowardly piece of chickenshit, you’d get out from behind the computer screen and go on a ghost hunt yourself sometime. You just might learn something.

Sean Madison stared at the screen of his iPhone as he processed the comment. It’d been posted to his latest video, which he had uploaded to YouTube in the wee hours of the morning just before calling it a night. Sometime between—3:46 A.M., he checked the upload time—and now, a little before ten in the morning, some jackass left it. Hell, the video hadn’t even been online for six hours and already he was getting negative feedback.

You might learn something…

Out loud, Sean muttered, “Yeah, right. Learn what? That ghosts aren’t real? I already know that.”

He started to scroll to the next comment, ready to ignore it—no use responding to the crazies, in his opinion—when the commenter’s username caught his eye.

ParaDaveRVA. Which explained it.

Sean grinned, any anger he felt dissolving into amusement. David Diego ran Paranormal RVA, a local club of sorts that seemed to be made up of himself and some girl Sean thought might be his sister. They spent their weekends overnighting in old, abandoned places and filming themselves trying to rile up any spirits that might be lingering around…which is to say, in Sean’s opinion, they spooked each other in the dark and uploaded the videos to their YouTube channel claiming they were proof of the paranormal.

But Sean never saw anything supernatural in the videos. There were noises, true, but they sounded like bats and mice, not poltergeists. Floorboards creaked—of course, that’s what they did. It was rotten wood settling and didn’t mean a spirit was hovering nearby. And the videos were filmed in the dark or, worse, using a night vision lens, which made everything look a hundred times spookier. But that didn’t mean it was.

Ghosts weren’t real, Sean knew. No matter how much David D in RVA wanted them to be. And the guy’s crappy ghost hunt videos were the main reason Sean had started his own channel a few months back, posting commentary and reactions to such bullshit. He’d sample paranormal videos—David’s were always a favorite—and laugh at or mock the supposed supernatural occurrences. He got a kick out of it, and made a few followers laugh, but he didn’t think he made much of a splash. There were so many reaction videos online anymore, so many paranormal videos, that his mostly flew under the radar.

So this was the first time anyone he’d poked fun at had clapped back.

He mostly picked on David’s videos because the guy was local—they both lived in Richmond, Virginia, though the city was large enough they never actually crossed paths in real life. Sean had once tried to look up the business license for Paranormal RVA and only got as far as a post office box in Henrico, which didn’t tell him much of anything. But he got a kick out of watching David try to drum up ghosts at random spots he recognized, like Tredegar Iron Works on the James River, or Hanover Tavern, or the Byrd Park Pump House. Just because the buildings dated back to the Civil War or older didn’t mean they had to be haunted.

In addition to being neighbors, of sorts, Sean always got a kick out of David’s videos. They were sort of reactionary themselves, though not in the same way Sean’s were. The videos David uploaded were usually an hour or two of him kicking around a darkened building until he was too scared to continue filming. Every little sound set him off, from his own shuffling shoes to a car alarm going off in the distance. Everything was suspect, in his opinion. Everything stank of the supernatural.

Sean thought it all stank, too, but not because of spirits or ghosts. The word bullshit came to mind, and he was always quick to call it like he saw it in his own videos. Some might wonder why he bothered, then—his mother sure did, when he tried to explain to her why he quit a low-paying office job to post online. But he had fun, got paid to laugh at others’ expense, and truth be told, he liked ParaDaveRVA’s videos for a simple, very non-paranormal reason.

The guy was hot.

All the nonsense talk of ghosts aside, David Diego was nice to look at, plain and simple, and Sean liked watching him freak out whenever something went bump in the night. Sometimes, when he got really worked up, he made a nervous little uh uh uh noise in the back of his throat that turned Sean on something fierce. He could imagine it whimpered in his ear during sex, and more than once he’d shifted in his seat while watching David onscreen to alleviate a sudden ache in his groin. So far none of his viewers had called him out on it, though it was probably only a matter of time.

If you weren’t such a cowardly piece of chickenshit…

Though wait, didn’t David call him out? Not on that, thank God, but still. Was he proposing Sean join him on a ghost hunt sometime?

Hunting ghosts isn’t the only thing we can do in the dark, Sean mused.

His finger hovered over the reply icon on David’s post. Did he really want to get into it with this guy?

Might be fun.

True. Before he could think better of it, he clicked the icon and typed, Learn what? That ghosts aren’t real? Email me if you want to prove it.

He posted the comment, then closed the app. If this was only about ghosts, though, why did he feel more like he was flirting with someone on Grindr than arguing with a commenter on YouTube?

It was in the nervous little flutter in his lower belly, the rush of blood to his balls and dick, the stupid little smile he couldn’t seem to tamp down. Yeah, this was definitely going to be fun.

* * * *

Shortly after noon, Sean’s phone pinged with an incoming email. The notification on his screen read From Paranormal RVA, Subject: You serious?? Sean smirked as he swiped up to read it.

David jumped into things without a greeting. Damn right I’ll prove it, the email read. How about joining me overnight at Centre Hill Mansion? We’re doing an investigation—Sean snorted out loud at that, investigation, like this guy was part of CSI: Richmond or something—right after the ghost tour on Halloween night. You in?

As if they were old friends or something. Sean had to laugh. You know I’m only going to debunk your so-called ghosts, right? he typed in response. Then he added his phone number, and, Texting might be faster.

It was. Within minutes he got a text from an unknown number, presumably David’s. Without preamble, the guy wrote, You can try to debunk them all you want but I know what I’ve seen.

Did David not know the word hello? Then show me, Sean shot back. Halloween night—what time? Where?

A blinking ellipsis told him David was an iPhone man like himself. After a moment the icon disappeared, replaced by the words, Centre Hill Mansion.

Sean hadn’t heard of it. In Richmond?

Petersburg, David replied, indicating a small city a good half hour’s drive to the south. Hold on.

Sean assumed the next text would be a link to Google Maps pinpointing the place. Calling it a “mansion” was probably generous; it was more likely a small antebellum home that had survived the ravages of the American Civil War and was restored in the twentieth century with historical tax credits. The ghost tour was probably put together in later years to drum up interest in the site.

But instead of a link or map, the text screen disappeared, replaced by video of David’s face. The angle was unflattering—Sean could look right up his nose, it seemed—but the guy was still hot. The bewildered look on his face as he frowned at the screen only made him cuter. “What the fuck?” he muttered under his breath.

“You hit the Facetime button,” Sean explained, even though it was obvious what had happened.

David’s brow furrowed. “I was trying to send a link.”

“Yeah, well, you didn’t.”

Sean considered David’s awkward angle for a moment, then raised his phone so his already big nose didn’t eclipse the screen. He was used to repositioning his camera to catch his best angle, but then again, his videos were basically just him sitting in one place laughing at people like David, bumping around dark houses and abandoned cemeteries after hours. The only light in most of those videos came from night vision lens. If David didn’t care what he looked like tinted green, he probably didn’t care how big his nostrils looked on Sean’s phone.

But he must’ve noticed Sean’s angle changed because he repositioned his phone, too, and frowned into the screen. For a long moment, the men watched one another, each waiting for the other to speak. Sean wasn’t going to be the first, though. He called me, even if it was only by accident. This is his show.

Finally David snickered. “I have to admit you’re not quite as scary as I thought you’d be in real life.”

“Scary?” Sean had to laugh. “How am I scary?”

“You’re so mean in your videos,” David admitted. “I was sort of expecting…I don’t know, demon horns or something. But you look completely normal.”

“Gee, thanks.” Shaking his head, Sean asked, “What do you mean horns? You’ve seen my vids. I don’t even believe in demons.”

David shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe you ‘shopped them out or something.”

“If I had horns—which I don’t,” Sean hastened to add, “why would I bother to Photoshop them out what, frame by frame? That would be such a pain in the ass.”

With a sardonic grin, David asked, “And yet you think those of us who post paranormal videos go through all that time and energy faking it just to pretend ghosts exist?”

“Yeah, because ghosts aren’t real.” Sean had to laugh. “I’m not saying your videos are faked.”

“Gee, thanks,” David said, mimicking Sean from earlier. “What makes my videos so special?”

“No ghosts in them,” Sean explained. “No orbs that are nothing but bugs on the camera. No blurry shadows or people in sheets lurking in the background. Just you and your girlfriend spooking each other and calling it supernatural.”

David frowned. “That’s my sister!”

Thought so. Sean had to bite his lower lip to keep from smirking. “Yeah, well, I’m not going to be afraid of some random noises that could be literally anything but a ghost.”

“You’ll see,” David warned. “Centre Hill Mansion, Halloween night. The place is haunted.”

Rolling his eyes, Sean scoffed. “So they say.”

“It is!” David insisted. “I had an experience there last year.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet.” Why did that not surprise him?

Before hanging up, David promised, “You’ll see.”

Sean looked forward to calling out his bullshit in real time. His viewers would love it.

To be continued …