In the Dark, Part 4

By the time they returned to Centre Hill Mansion, it was about ten to seven and a crowd had started to form. Smokers congregated in a small knot at the end of the walkway, near the street, while a half dozen people milled about the wide porch. Cars lined both edges of the looped road but David turned down a dirt drive and pulled into an empty spot behind the building, right in front of a sign that read Employees Only.

As he turned off the car, Sean frowned. “I don’t think we can park here.”

“They told me to,” David assured him. “We’re staying the night.”

“Yeah but…” Suddenly an unnerving thought hit Sean. “Wait. They do know we’re staying, right? I mean, you asked someone and they said okay. Tell me this isn’t just you and me slipping away from the tour group and hiding in a closet somewhere until they lock up for the night.”

“No, no.” David avoided looking at Sean as he climbed out of the car. “They know we’re coming.”

Sean got out, too. “Well yeah, we bought tickets. But they know we’re spending the night, right? They said we could? I mean, you did ask?”

“I did!” David ducked into the backseat to retrieve his own camera bag.

Sean waited, watching him, wanting more assurance they weren’t going to be arrested before the night was through.

After a long moment, David stood and noticed Sean. “What? I swear. Trust me.”

Grudgingly, Sean sighed. “If we end up in jail—”

“We won’t.” David slammed the door shut. “Grab your camera and come on. I don’t want to get stuck at the back of the group.”

“Yeah, because the ghosts are going to all be up at the front.” Still, Sean reached into the car to unhook his GoPro camera from the seat clamp. Turning it to face him, he grimaced into the lens and, in a less than enthusiastic voice, he muttered, “Let the good times roll.”

Already heading away from the car, David called out over his shoulder, “I heard that!”

When David disappeared around the side of the house, Sean started after him, but stopped at the sound of his shoes crunching on gravel. Inspired, he bent down and scooped up a small handful of pebbles to stick them in his pocket. Might be a fun way to spook David later in the evening. Probably not something he could do on the tour, though—too many people. Someone might see him or, worse, there’d be too much ambient noise for anyone to hear a tiny pebble skitter away into a corner somewhere. But later, when it was just the two of them, maybe he could get a rise out of David if he timed it right.

Spooking him isn’t the only rise I’d like to get. Sean tamped down a grin before following David.

By the time they circled around to the front of the mansion, a line was beginning to form down the steps. More people mingled on the porch, chatting and laughing, some a bit nervously. David wove through the crowd and, surprisingly, they parted before him, probably seeing the camera he held and thinking he was more important than he really was. Sean kept close behind, not wanting to get separated.

The double front doors stood open, which made Sean wonder why everyone was still hanging around outside. The sun had gone down by now and the temperature was beginning to drop—he’d rather be inside and warm if he had a choice. But a docent stopped them at the threshold before they could barge all the way in.

“The tour starts right at seven,” she said.

The woman was older than Sean or David by a good twenty years or so, and wore a Civil War-era gingham dress with a wide lace collar and large lace sleeves. Sean got the impression it wasn’t just a costume for Halloween. A bonnet covered her hair and was tied under her chin, and a pair of tiny metal square spectacles perched on the bridge of her nose. Though she was shorter than either man, she somehow managed to look down at them through those specs with a sternness that called to mind a librarian shushing unruly children.

As David pulled out his phone and opened the email with their tickets, he told her, “I’m with Paranormal RVA. I spoke with Miss Shirley—”

“Oh! Yes! I should’ve known!” The woman’s whole demeanor changed as she noticed his camera for the first time, then looked past him to see Sean holding another. “You’re the guys with Ghost Adventures.”

Sean threw David a confused glance. “Wait, no—”

But David jabbed him in the ribs. “Yes. We’re staying to do a ghost hunt tonight.”

Half-turning from the docent so she wouldn’t overhear, Sean gave David a wide-eyed warning stare as he hissed, “Ghost Adventures? Did you really tell them we were with—”

“Stop it.” David pushed him aside as another woman in period dress approached. She looked older than the first, with silver hair smoothed back into a tight bun at the nape of her neck and two thick ringlets framing her face. Her clothing was much more elaborate than the docent’s, definitely giving off lady of the manor vibes.

“David Diego, right?” she asked, beaming.

David shook her hand. “You must be Miss Shirley.”

She nodded. “I am. Come in, come in.”

From outside came a few protests and grumbles. “Why do they get to go in?” someone asked.

Unable to stop himself, Sean held up his camera to scan the crowd and announced, “Apparently we’re with Ghost Adventures.”

This really wasn’t serious now, was it?

“Come in,” Miss Shirley said again, stepping aside to usher them into the corridor as she craned her neck to see outside. “Is it just you two? I was expecting a larger…what do you call it? A larger crew.”

“Well, I said we were like Ghost Adventures,” David hedged.

Sean realized what must have happened. When David had called to ask about spending the night, whoever he spoke to wasn’t exactly familiar with the whole YouTube paranormal video craze. So in trying to explain what he wanted to do, he’d mentioned the popular Travel Channel show and somehow ended up making them think he was affiliated with it. Had Miss Shirley curled her hair this afternoon hoping to make an impression on Zak Bagans and company?

Surprise! You got us instead. Sean stifled a smirk.

“Oh, I get it!” Miss Shirley clapped her hands together in delight. “You’re here to scout out the location, am I right? Make sure it’s as haunted as we say it is, so it’ll make for good TV.”

With a knowing glance at David, Sean nodded. “Yeah, something like that.”

David kicked the side of Sean’s shoe, but Miss Shirley didn’t notice. A clock in another room let out a somber chime and she jumped. “Oh! That’s seven, then. Time to line up. You two stay up front with me, won’t you? Wait right here.”

She edged around them to start gathering together the rest of the tour and, as she passed, Sean noticed an open door off to their left. Rows of bookcases lined the walls, and stands displayed knick-knacks and postcards and other souvenirs.

He stared at David until David stared back. “What?”

Sean nodded at the room. “You know it’s a real haunted house when the first thing you see upon entering is—wait for it—the gift shop. Think they have squished pennies here?”

“Shut up,” David muttered.

“Hey,” Sean joked, “I’m not the one who lied and said we were with Ghost Adventures.”

David sighed. “I had to tell her something to get her to let us stay overnight. This place really is haunted, trust me. I’ve seen things here.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve seen your videos,” Sean shot back, “so excuse me for not believing you.”

But David only shrugged. “You’ll see for yourself.”

* * * *

As those outside poured into the main parlor, Sean and David found themselves pushed into the hall. Ornate trim decorated every inch of the mansion, which lived up to its name, Sean had to admit. The walls were covered with elaborate Victorian wallpaper—very floral and very green. He panned his camera around, then grimaced at the lens. “Let’s hope that’s replica Scheele’s green,” he told his future viewers.

“What’s that?” David asked.

He moved closer, out of the way of the crowd, and even though no part of him touched any part of Sean, suddenly it felt like a spark shot between them. At least to Sean. It was fast and over way too soon, but it left him weak in the knees and made his hand holding the camera shake. There was something about David, despite his irrational interest in the paranormal, something that made him easy to talk to and joke with, something that made Sean feel as if they’d known each other already even though they only met in person earlier in the day.

The look David gave Sean seemed to say he’d felt it, too, and he took a quick step back. Then he looked past Sean at the wall, as if trying to play it off. “What kind of green did you say this is?”

Sean had to clear his throat before he could trust himself to speak. What the hell just happened? “Scheele’s green,” he explained as David reached out to brush his fingers along the wall. “It was highly poisonous because it was made with arsenic.”

David jerked back his hand so fast, Sean had to laugh. “I’m sure it’s fake.”

It broke the sudden tension a bit, and Sean chalked it up to nerves because he wasn’t scared or anything. Maybe he was just horny. It wasn’t often he got to spend the night with a guy, even if they weren’t going to do anything. He’d grown weary of dating apps long ago and didn’t enjoy random hookups all that much. Having a guy—an attractive guy like David—cozy up to him so unabashedly, without even a second thought, must’ve kickstarted his libido or something, damn.

And we have how many more hours together? Most of them in the dark? Alone?

His stomach gave a nervous little flutter, but then he reminded himself, Playing ghost hunters, so it isn’t exactly intimate. Come to think of it, he could name several things he’d be interested in doing with David in the dark that didn’t involve the paranormal, though they would definitely get demonetized if they tried posting any of those videos on YouTube.

With a wary eye at the wall, David shuffled closer again, his arm resting easily alongside Sean’s. Was this an unconscious gesture? Did he not feel anything standing so near?

How could he not?

It’s the tension in the room, Sean thought, justifying what he felt. Everyone here’s on edge and that’s cranking me up a bit, too. It’s nothing else. Hell, we aren’t even friends.

But he didn’t move away, and neither did David. In fact, David somehow managed to move even closer as Miss Shirley cut through the crowd, her dress swirling as people opened a path. Her voice rose easily over the noise, and everyone quieted down to listen.

“Welcome to Centre Hill Mansion,” she said, her voice taking on a faint Southern Belle accent Sean hadn’t noticed before. “This is the first time we’ve opened up the house on Halloween. Our ghost tours are usually in January, when it’s said the family who lived in the home years ago would hear the footsteps of a ghostly regime of Civil War soldiers trooping up and down the stairs.”

“Bullshit,” Sean coughed into his hand.

David elbowed him in the gut. “Stop.”

Either Miss Shirley didn’t hear their exchange or chose to ignore them, because she plowed on with the history of the mansion, which was now a museum and listed on the National Register of Historical Places. As much as Sean enjoyed learning new things, though, she kept veering into the supposed paranormal activity and he just didn’t buy it. He zoned her out and instead looked around, admiring the curled cornices and carved door jambs, the flowers on the wallpaper—not touching them, of course, because fake or not, he wasn’t going to take his chances—the polished wooden floors, the opulent furniture, the thick drapes hiding the night beyond the windows. There was a heaviness to the place that pressed in on him, a weight he could almost feel, something old, something heady. Something…

Definitely not paranormal, he chided himself, mentally this time. Probably shouldn’t have had so much boom boom sauce with dinner.

He felt something brush across the nape of his neck, a barely there touch that ruffled the bottom of his hair and was gone. Quickly he reached back to swat it away—nothing. He smoothed down his hair and half-turned to look up the empty stairwell behind him.

Odd.

When he turned back around, David was smirking at him. “Did you feel something?”

“Yeah, I felt air on my neck,” Sean admitted, then followed with, “which probably came from a vent upstairs.”

David asked, “Are you sure? Maybe it was—”

“It was not.”

Before David could argue, Miss Shirley clapped her hands. “Let’s start our tour in the basement, shall we? It isn’t an area we usually open up to visitors but I think we can make a special exception, with so many ghost hunters here with us tonight.”

She glanced over at Sean and David as she spoke, causing the rest of the crowd to look at them, too. Sean heard the words Ghost Adventures in low whispers and shook his head. To David, he said, “It was not a ghost.”

Then he pushed past David to follow Miss Shirley.

To be continued …