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‘Deep in the forest, far from the safe, suburban streets of this quiet Kent town, lies a house. Abandoned for years, it has become the stuff of legend: tales of ghostly apparitions in the kitchen and unexplained events in the attic reach far across the south-east of England, striking fear into the hearts of children and adults alike. Few have been brave enough to cross its threshold, and even fewer have lived to tell the tale. Tonight, a group of brave queers, and Tao, spend the night facing up to the evil forces within, with an aim to claim back this house for the people of Rochester-’
“Or to make friends! Whatever works.”
Tao sighs, his opening monologue interrupted, and stops the recording. “Darcy, that was a good take!”
“Sorry,” Darcy shrugs, not looking so, “but should we not be telling the demons that we come in peace?”
“I don’t think that demons are in the habit of accepting messages of peace and harmony,” Charlie points out from the corner as he rubs a visibly distressed Nick on the back.
Tao rolls his eyes and adds a strike to his mental tally of accidentally-on-purpose physical contact that Nick and Charlie have made tonight. This makes four, after Nick gently dabbing fake blood down the side of Charlie’s neck as they all got ready at Tao’s; Charlie grabbing Nick’s arm to ‘steady him’ as they picked their way down the woodland path leading to the house — Tao had pointed out that Nick did play competitive sport, and so was likely able to keep himself upright in the face only very slightly uneven ground, but was met only with a death-glare from Charlie, and a light blush from Nick — and, literally only minutes ago, when he’d turned around and caught Nick gently brushing a curl back from Charlie’s forehead. It’s been like this for months now, and Tao is on the verge of locking the both of them into the rugby store cupboard until they figure it out for themselves.
“Also,” Darcy continues, “we are only a five minute walk from civilization.”
“They’re not wrong,” Tara pipes up from where she’s gazing out of the living room window. “Look, I can see the main road from here.”
“That’s not the point,” Tao hisses, “it’s about dramatic effect.”
Elle gives his hand a conciliatory squeeze. “Maybe you can fix it in post, hmm?”
“I’m going for a Blair Witch vibe,” Tao reminds her. “It needs to be natural.”
“Oh god,” Nick mutters, looking pale.
“I still can’t believe you made him watch the The Blair Witch Project with you,” Charlie shoots at Tao as he doubles down on his efforts at soothing Nick.
“You were all busy!” Tao complains. “Plus, he said he wanted to watch it.”
“I did say that,” Nick admits. “It’s not Tao’s fault.”
“OK,” Charlie says mildly, patting Nick on the shoulder, “we’ll pretend you have any say in the films Tao makes us watch.”
“It’s my duty to give you all a cultural education,” Tao reminds them as he tugs at the collar of his shirt. It’s beginning to itch a little, and he’s slightly worried he’s allergic to the cheap polyester. “Also, I still don’t know why we had to dress up, it’s kind of ruining my found-footage aesthetic.”
He looks pointedly round at his friends. Charlie is wearing an outfit that he’d dubbed ‘sexy vampire’. Nick is a poor approximation of a pirate, with a billowy white top, which Tao is almost certain is Sarah’s, tucked into his usual straight-legged jeans. To be fair to him, he’d had an eyepatch on too, until Charlie complained it was covering up too much of his lovely face (very much Charlie’s words, not Tao’s) and made him take it off. Darcy and Tara are dressed as Shrek and Fiona respectively and he is, admittedly, impressed with the execution. Isaac is in Edwardian get-up — some high-necked thing with ruffles — and actually looks quite dashing. When they all stand together, though, the combined effect looks like the cheap costume shop on the high street has exploded.
“It’s Halloween,” Tara insists, “it’s the rules.”
“Exactly,” Elle nods along, then reaches up to adjust Tao’s headpiece. “Anyway, I think you look cute.”
Tao softens. “So do you,” he mutters, reaching out to tug at the collar of Elle’s pink dress. He’d been a little affronted when she’d first suggested they dress as Sam and Suzy from Moonrise Kingdom (especially when it meant spending last weekend trawling through the charity shops on the high street looking for the perfect fur hat) but for some reason, lately, he’s developed a bit of a soft spot for the film — for those strange children and their relentless commitment to love.
Plus, Elle does look great in pink.
Charlie claps his hands together. “Right, that’s enough from you two, you were all over each other whilst we were getting ready.”
Tao takes a breath, ready with some comment about how Charlie and Nick are worse than he and Elle ever were, and they aren’t even together, but he’s cut off with a frighteningly coordinated look from Isaac and Tara. He bites it back, chastened; there’s a tacit agreement between them all not to mention the elephant in the room.
“Yeah, fair enough,” he says instead, giving Charlie a small smile.
Nick and Charlie have become closer still in the months — nearly a year, actually — since Charlie returned from inpatient. Sometimes, they seemed to be able to have entire conversations with just a look. It would be creepy, actually, if it wasn’t so sweet. Then, when Nick had come out to them all at the start of the summer, shaky-voiced but resolute, with Charlie’s gentle, encouraging presence by his side, they had all sort of… expected that something would happen. It had been months now, though, and somehow they were still doing this dance: loaded looks at the picnic table, and gravitating towards each other at film night only to spring apart and blush when the lights went back on and they realised just how close they had gotten.
He had gotten a bit pushy about it at a party a few weeks ago — he was drunk, and the pining looks they were sending each other when they thought the other wasn’t looking were driving him mad — and Isaac had taken him aside to give him a strict warning about letting them go at their own pace.
Tao does get it. He remembers all too well how terrifying it had been when he realised he liked Elle, and the sinking disappointment of their false start. That pervasive sense that he’d ruined everything by daring to try. Even now that they’re so good at talking about things — mostly Elle’s doing, but Tao is getting there — he baulks at the idea of the conversation they really need to have. It’s one he knows they’ve both been putting off: about next year, and what will happen when Elle inevitably gets accepted into the art school of her dreams in Berlin, or Prague, or any one of the other places she’s dreaming of.
All that to say, he knows what it’s like to be scared of laying your cards on the table.
Charlie looks surprised at Tao’s lenience, having clearly expected some sort of retort. Right as he opens his mouth to reply, though, a heavy thud echoes out from somewhere deep in the house.
They are all silent for a moment as it reverberates around them. Nick makes a strange strangled noise, and Tao sees Charlie squeeze his arm reflexively. Tara jumps a little and steps closer to Darcy. Elle swears under her breath.
Even Isaac looks a little alarmed. “What was that?” he asks, eyes darting to the door.
“A ghost!” Darcy claps their hands, delighted.
“It’ll be a pipe or something,” reasons Tara. “It’s an old house.”
Tao quietly turns his camera back on, taking an arching wide-shot of his friend’s worried faces before zooming in on Nick. “Lulled into a false sense of security, the teens don’t even notice the danger that is closing in-"
“Tao!” Charlie protests, laughing. “Tara’s right, it’ll just be the house settling.”
“Shall we all split up and take a look?” Darcy asks.
“That is literally the worst thing we could do,” Tao points out. “It’s, like, the basis of every horror film.”
He knows, logically, that Tara is probably right. It’s an old house, falling to ruin, and it’s bound to creak and groan at random in the prevailing autumn winds. The thing is, there are… rumours. The house has stood empty and abandoned since the late-eighties, and the tales date back nearly that far. Its location, set in the forest off one of the main housing estates, adds to the allure: it’s surrounded by wood and, although they are probably only fifteen minutes from the nearest Tesco Metro, it does give it an air of total isolation.
At school, people trade stories of seeing a figure standing in the kitchen, or of a light flicking on in one of the upstairs windows at night. Every so often, sixth-formers break in and spend the night, returning to school on Monday to crow about the feat, and relentlessly teasing the ones who couldn’t see it through until morning.
Cian Malcolm, a stocky boy who’d been in Year 12 when Tao was in Year Seven, had walked around showing everyone claw marks on his back that he claimed he’d woken up with after one such night. Tao can remember watching him showing them off from their usual position on the picnic benches. When someone asked Cian what he’d actually seen, though, he’d gone pale, and quiet. When he’d opened his mouth to reply, the words sticking, Tao had leaned in, desperate to hear his answer over Charlie and Elle’s conversation. Then, someone had made some joke about the marks actually being from Cian’s girlfriend at the time — her name might have been Lucy, or Laura — and the moment was gone, the older boy snapping out of it and laughing along with the others.
Cian stopped coming to school a few months after that. Tao never really found out why.
“They always split up in Scooby-Doo,” Darcy points out.
“Ohh, if we’re in Scooby-Doo, then I’m Velma,” Tara grins, “I look great in orange.”
“You do, babe,” Darcy agrees, pressing a kiss to Tara’s cheek. “I guess that makes me Daphne. I’ll buy some Go-go boots tomorrow.”
“Is Daphne not with Fred?” Tao asks, confused.
He’s met with the withering stares of his dear, dear friends.
“They’re very clearly queer-coded,” Isaac points out, before turning his attention back to his copy of Pet Sematary.
Tao looks over at Elle, who hums in the affirmative. Nick is also nodding his head in agreement, looking a bit less abjectly terrified now. Charlie comes across the room and claps Tao on the shoulder. “Don’t worry,” he says, “we’ll continue your cultural education if we all make it out of here alive.”
“Fuck off,” Tao replies, but there’s no heat in it. Charlie just winks at him, before skipping back across the room to stand next to Nick again.
Just then, another thud echoes through the room.
“Fucking hell,” Nick complains, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Maybe we should have gone to Harry’s party.”
“That would be infinitely more horrifying,” Charlie reminds him.
“True,” Nick sighs.
“I still think we should split up and look. It’ll be great content, Tao,” Darcy reminds him.
“Fine,” Tao allows. An honest-to-god ghost sighting would be cinematic gold. “All I ask is that if you are about to get murdered by, like, Micheal Myers or Ghostface or someone, you at least film it.” Darcy gives him a mock-salute. “Also,” Tao presses on, as he sees Elle roll her eyes, “no one say anything stupid like ‘we’ll be right back’ or ‘we’ll be safe down here’. That’s just asking for trouble.”
“Agreed,” Charlie says, before grabbing Nick’s hand — Tao mentally adds another mark to the tally — and tugging him towards the door. “We’ll go look on this level.”
“We’ll take the basement,” Darcy declares, ushering Isaac and Tara towards the stairs. “I want to be the first one to see a ghost.”
Tao looks at Elle, who just shrugs at him. “I guess that means we have the upstairs,” he says grimly. “And whatever creepy attic is inevitably up there.”
“At least it’ll be atmospheric,” she reminds him.
He grins at her. “Finally someone who understands my vision.”
She rolls her eyes again, but there’s that familiar warmth in her expression when she tells him, “always.”
“We’ll be right back,” Isaac calls cheerily from the corridor as he, Darcy, and Tara descend down the stairs to the basement.
“For god’s sake!” Tao shouts back, met only by Isaac’s distant, echoing laughter.
🕸️
The basement is damp, and dark, as most basements are. The only source of light is one small, high window to the outside world, the glass long smashed in. The weak illumination of the moon glitters from the shards prettily where they lie strewn on the floor. The effect is instantaneously lost when Isaac turns the torch on his phone up high and shines it around the room, making the dust and cobwebs gathered in the corner obvious. Darcy makes a vague noise of protest, but Isaac has no particular plans to die in the dark.
“Ugh,” Tara wrinkles her nose. “If there are ghosts, or, like, demons, down here, you’d think they’d clean up from time to time.”
“Probably not high up on their priority list after moving around kitchen utensils and serving as clumsy metaphors for generational trauma,” Isaac reasons.
“You have been watching Tao’s films,” Darcy accuses.
“The Babadook was good,” he mutters defensively; it was, although Nick had had to leave the room after about six minutes and they’d all had to pretend they didn’t spend the rest of the film listening to him and Charlie giggle in the next room over. Still, he’d only lasted four during Midsommar. “And I liked Barbarian.”
“Speaking of,” Tara says airily, grabbing Isaac’s arm and moving his hand so the beam of his torch catches the door set in the far wall of the room. It’s dark-wooded and menacing, of course, with an iron handle and peeling paint. It looks out of place down here – somehow older than the house itself.
“That doesn’t bode well,” Isaac says grimly. He shares a look with Tara as Darcy bounds up to it and reaches out to try the handle.
“Darce, don’t, please,” Tara calls.
Darcy turns back. “I thought you didn’t believe in any of this?” they challenge.
Tara shrugs. “I don’t really, but I do have a shred of self preservation. Don’t fuck with ouija boards, don’t open scary old doors in mysterious houses, that kind of thing.” Isaac sees her look to him for some support.
“I kind of want to see what’s behind it,” he admits after a moment.
“Really?”
He shrugs. “Fear comes from the unknown.”
Tara sighs, but holds her hand out in front of her to gesture Darcy forward. “Alright, go on then.”
Darcy gives her a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks!” Bounding over to the door, they reach for the handle with a flourish, giving it a push and… nothing. The door doesn’t budge. Darcy tries again, pushing down the handle with two hands and leaning their full weight forward.
“Well that was anticlimactic,” Isaac complains. After the romantic psychodrama of Nick and Charlie’s will-they-won’t-they, and the coming-of-age montage of them all getting ready at Tao’s house as they passed a bottle of vodka round for dutch courage, he finds he's actually in the mood for some horror.
“Sometimes a door is just a door,” Tara reminds him.
Darcy sits on the floor in defeat. “When I picked the basement, I didn’t think it would actually be boring,” they complain.
“Come on,” Isaac says, holding out his hand, “let’s look in the cupboards, maybe we’ll find some teeth.”
Darcy visibly perks up at that, and lets Isaac pull them to their feet. Together they start rifling through the cupboards, met with a variety of creepy toys, rusted tools, and a tangle of old cables for mid-century electrics. Tara looks, too, half-heartedly, before giving up and perching herself on the stairs, clearly waiting for them both to tire themselves out.
“Oh my god, look at this,” Darcy calls triumphantly, holding aloft a yellowing photo album.
“Open it!” Isaac says, moving across the room to join them. Darcy sets it on one of the wooden cabinets and opens it at random. It’s full of old family photos, from sometime in the 1920s based on the sepia photos and buttoned-up clothes. As they flip through the pages, family members of various ages stare unsmilingly at the camera in a series of stiff, posed shots. Isaac doesn't believe in the supernatural. Not really. Not actually. Still — why does he sort of feel like their eyes are moving?
Darcy plucks out one of the photos. It’s a portrait of the whole family standing outside the front door of a stately home, complete with the father in a suit and tie, children of various ages in their Sunday best, and the mother clutching a severe-looking baby in a long, ostentatious christening gown. When Darcy flips it over, the sloping script on the back reads Truham Estate, 1923.
“I’m pretty sure this house was built in the eighties,” Isaac says. In fact, the whole surrounding area was made up with standard, brown-brick homes built as council houses throughout the late twentieth century, before gradually being sold off as private family homes in the years that followed. There’s nothing like the towering Edwardian manor staring out at them from the photo in the whole of Rochester, as far as he’s aware; even the nicer Victorian terraced houses down by the river don’t match up.
“Yeah,” Darcy agrees. “And Truham Estate? I’ve lived here for literally my whole life and never heard of it.”
“I think my mum once told me that they knocked something down to build the houses here,” Isaac says thoughtfully. “She never told me what, though.” He pulls out his phone to Google it, but sees he has no signal. He holds it up closer to the ceiling, but still nothing. Weird.
“Um, guys?” comes Tara’s voice, oddly quiet. Isaac doesn’t look, still wandering round the room, distracted, as he tries to get a connection.
“One sec, babe, look at this! Here, pass me my phone and I’ll take a few shots for Tao,” Darcy replies, holding their hand out expectantly.
“Guys!” Tara repeats, more forcefully this time.
Isaac drops his arm down and turns around. Tara is pointing towards the door with a shaky hand. Sometime in the past few minutes, without them noticing, it has swung itself wide open.
“Oh dear,” he says after a moment.
“Yeah,” Darcy says faintly, dropping the photo album and walking over to Tara to take her hand.
“What do we do?” Tara whispers.
“I guess we…take a look?” Darcy suggests.
“Yeah,” Isaac agrees slowly, his curiosity winning out over trepidation.
Darcy begins to step forward, but Tara pulls them back. “Darce,” she pleads. “Are you sure about this?”
“I basically grew up in a haunted house,” Darcy points out. “This is nothing.” Tara just frowns and reaches up to tuck their hair behind their ear. Darcy puts their hands up. “I’m joking. Mostly.”
“If you say so,” Tara allows.
“It was kind of funny,” Isaac acquiesces.
“Thank you.” Darcy takes a few steps forward and shines their torch into the darkness. Beyond the threshold, there is a set of rough-shod stone steps leading down into blackness. The torch-light doesn’t reach the bottom. As they stand there looking, a cold breeze washes over them all from the doorway.
“Fuck me,” Tara mutters. “I really think we should go back upstairs.”
“What happened to a door is just a door?” Isaac asks.
He feels Tara look over at him. “A door is just a door until it opens itself to reveal an actual staircase to hell.”
Darcy turns round to them both, suddenly alarmed. “Wait, do you think I can still be a final girl if I’m non-binary?”
“I think it’s a gender neutral term,” he replies distractedly as he stares down into the abyss.
Darcy just nods, before turning back to face the doorway and taking another few tentative steps forward. Just as they reach the threshold, several things happen almost simultaneously: another dull thud echoes up the stone steps, Tara screams and grabs his arm, and, with a groan, the door slams itself shut in Darcy’s face.
Isaac clutches his chest. “Yeah, fuck this,” he manages to grit out before they all turn heel and run full-pelt up the stairs. Darcy stumbles a little at the top, Isaac colliding with the back of them, then Tara with the back of him, and they all end up in a heap in the hallway, breathing hard. Tara quickly stands up and slams the door down into the basement shut with a resounding thud. After a moment’s contemplation, she drags the sideboard in the hallway across the front of it for good measure. She looks back at Darcy and Isaac where they are still sprawled on the floor. Isaac is impressed to see that, somehow, she still has her ogre ears on, albeit at an angle.
The sight makes both him and Darcy double over in laughter, driven by adrenaline and relief. After a moment, Tara joins in, a little hysterical as she sits herself back onto the floor.
“Oh shit,” Isaac says suddenly as they all catch their breath.
“What is it?” Tara asks, concerned.
“We didn’t film any of that. Tao’s going to kill us.”
🕸️
Tao and Elle ascend the stairs, each step creaking its protest as they go. The first floor ends up holding nothing of great interest. There are a few bedrooms — two of which still have ancient iron beds in them, and one just a suspiciously stained mattress on the floor — and the hallway is lined with old oil portraits that Tao resolves not to look at too closely. As he suspected, there’s a hatch set into the ceiling in the hallway.
“That’ll be the creepy attic,” he sighs.
“Yup,” Elle agrees.
“I suppose we should go up.”
“Probably. Got to get the shot.”
“Got to get the shot,” Tao echoes.
Together, they pull through a chest of drawers from one of the bigger bedrooms. Elle holds it steady as Tao climbs up onto it and pulls on the handle of the hatch. It opens easily, albeit in a cloud of dust, and the ladder slides smoothly down and onto the floor like it’s inviting them in.
Tao goes up first, reaching up to set his camera on the ledge so it gets a shot of him climbing in. The attic is pitch black. He feels around on the wall until he finds a switch. Surprisingly, it works – a single naked bulb buzzes then flickers on in the centre of the room. It doesn’t reach far; there’s just enough light to see boxes scattered over the floor, whilst the corners remain stubbornly dark.
“Are you dead?” Elle’s voice floats up from where she is still standing waiting at the bottom of the ladder.
Tao pokes his head out over the hatch. “Not yet. Are you coming up?”
Elle considers it for a moment, looking around the hallway and clearly weighing up the benefits of joining Tao versus waiting, alone, in the darkened hall. “OK then,” she sighs. “I suppose I’d rather know if something tries to drag you to hell.”
He grins and holds out a hand. “Come on, then.”
Elle ascends, Tao helping her up the last few steps as she clambers to the top. Tutting, she stands up and brushes the dust from her knees before looking around the dim room. “What’s that?” she whispers, pointing to something lying in the middle of the room, half covered with canvas. Tao notices it with a start. Had that been there before?
He picks up his camera and directs it in front of him as he walks over and pulls the canvas off with a flourish. It’s a ouija board, surrounded by half-melted black candles with long-dried dried wax pooling on the floor around them. It’s oddly beautiful: dark wood, with the letters carved carefully into the surface and gilded in gold to stand out against the grain. It looks…old. Definitely well used; like generations of people before them might have turned to it to commune with the dead.
Tao reaches down and picks up the planchette. It’s heavy. “Definitely not from Amazon,” he says as he flips it over in his hand. On the bottom, there are a series of tally marks. “What do you think these mean?” he asks, holding it out to Elle.
She reaches out and takes it from him. “Not sure I really want to know.”
“You’re probably right.” Tao agrees.
She looks up at him, a challenge in her eyes. “Shall we try it?”
Tao grimaces. “Do you want to?”
“My grandma would kill me,” Elle shrugs. “But what she doesn’t know can’t hurt her.”
Tao sets up his camera in the corner of the room, pressing record, and they sit cross-legged and facing each other across the board. “I’m pretty sure there are rules about this,” Tao muses, searching his mind for the last film he watched where they did something similar. The only one that comes to mind is Talk to Me. He decides not to mention it; it hadn’t ended particularly well for anyone involved.
“I think we need to light a candle,” Elle suggests. “And, like, create a positive energy.”
“Right,” Tao replies, not really buying it. “And how do we do that?”
Elle hums, then pulls out the lighter that she has tucked into her sock next to a tube of lipstick; her wallet and phone are safely stored in the various pockets of Tao’s boy-scout get up, of course, but she likes to keep the essentials close. Tao’s used to it by now. In fact, although he puts up a token protest, he kind of loves it. The first time they’d gone out together and Elle hadn’t wanted to take a bag — they were going to Naomi’s birthday party, and she didn't want to ruin the line of her dress — he’d felt magnetised to her the whole night, more than happy to have her phone and compact mirror bulking out the pocket of his jeans as she dragged him round and introduced him to all her Lambert friends.
Elle leans over and lights one of the candles, throwing a shaky light across the room. She always looks gorgeous, obviously, but there’s something about her in the soft candlelight that makes it hard for him to look away. She holds her hands out expectantly and Tao takes them. “Now,” she says, “close your eyes and think about good things.”
Tao does just that: he thinks about Elle, and how he hopes he gets to spend the rest of his life carrying her stuff for her at parties whilst she dazzles the room. He thinks of his friends, downstairs, subjecting themselves to an evening in a cold, dusty house just because he’d asked. He thinks of his mum, who’d clapped in delight when they’d all come down the stairs in their outfits and insisted on taking a photo so she could add it to the collection on the mantelpiece, next to his awkward school photos and his parent’s wedding picture, his dad smiling wide out of the frame.
When he opens his eyes, Elle’s looking at him like she knows what he’s thinking about. “You ready?” she asks gently.
Tao nods, and they let go of each other to press their fingers together over the planchette. “Hello, spirits,” he starts, trying to sound like he knows what he’s doing. Elle gives him a look; admittedly, he is perhaps putting more bass into his tone than normal, but he’s got a film to think about. “I’m Tao. And this is Elle.”
“Good start,” Elle whispers, clearly trying to suppress her laughter.
Tao just raises a brow at her before continuing. “Is there anyone out there who would like to communicate with us?” They wait for a moment, staring down at the board. The planchette stays stubbornly still. Tao clears his throat and goes again. “We call upon any spirits with good intentions to come and speak to us. Are you there?”
After a few more moments of nothing, the planchette steadily, slowly, starts to move.
“What the fuck!” Tao gasps, drawing his hands away. When he looks up, there’s a glimmer in Elle’s eye. “For god’s sake,” he complains as she doubles over in laughter.
“Sorry, sorry, I couldn’t help myself,” she manages eventually. “Your face!”
Tao shakes his head, seeing the funny side now the initial shock has worn off. He places his hands back down. “Spirits, is Elle incredibly rude for playing that trick on me?” he asks, before yanking the planchette over to the YES.
Elle grins. “Spirits, is Tao’s favourite film really Donnie Darko?” She yanks it back over to the NO.
“It is!”
“Come on, we both know it’s actually The Iron Giant.”
“Also an excellent film,” Tao says primly.
“So true.”
They carry on like that for a while, sending each other into fits of laughter as they ask the board things like who is actually the louder snorer? and will Nick and Charlie ever admit they’re obsessed with each other? and which of us is really Isaac’s favourite?
They reach an impasse on that one, before the planchette helpfully spells out Charlie under their guidance.
Elle laughs. “Glad we both agree.” She pauses. “Let’s ask something else, shall we? Something we really want to know the answer to.” Tao isn’t sure who is humouring who anymore, but he’s always found it difficult to deny her anything.
“Do you want to go, or shall I?” he asks.
Elle looks at him, considering. “You go.”
“Alright then. Spirits-” Tao clears his throat. A laundry list of questions is unfurling in his mind – ranging from silly, to spooky, to painfully sincere. In the end, there’s only one he really wants the answer to. He goes again. “Spirits. Can Elle and I survive long distance?”
Elle looks up at him sharply. They make eye contact for a moment, but quickly both look back down at the board. Their hands remain still, and Tao can feel the tension running through where their fingertips are pressed together over the wood. Then- movement. Slowly, gradually, the planchette begins to glide over the surface of the board, over the letters of the alphabet towards the top-right corner, where the word YES is carved in bold, block letters.
Tao’s honestly not sure which one of them is doing it. Maybe it genuinely is the supernatural; maybe, tonight, even the undead are rooting for them. He can’t help but find the thought oddly romantic.
As soon as the planchette reaches its mark, Elle tosses it to the side and throws herself forward to wrap her arms around him. “Elle!” Tao exclaims, quickly manoeuvring her to the side so that she doesn’t make any contact with the candle, “we need to close the session!”
“Don’t care,” she laughs, and plants a kiss on his cheek. “I love you. We’re going to be just fine.”
“I know,” Tao says, because he realises it now: not everyone leaves. He reaches over to turn off the camera, then kisses her hard, spirits — benevolent or otherwise — long forgotten. The living are so much more interesting, anyway.
“Shall we go find the others?” Elle asks when they finally part. “We should probably check that no one’s been possessed.”
Tao gives a put-upon sigh. “I suppose so. It’s so hard to tell with that lot.”
“None of that,” Elle laughs, then yanks him forward again.
They kiss a little while longer, until even Tao has to admit that this damp and dusty attic is probably not the best place for it. Tao gets up to turn off the light, so that the flickering candlelight is the only illumination in the room.
Elle sets off down the ladder first, calling up to Tao when she reaches the bottom. “One sec!” he calls back, before turning around and blowing out the candle and sending out a silent thank you to whoever might be listening.
🕸️
Nick and Charlie stay close as they make their way through the ground floor rooms of the house, the noise of their friends gradually filtering away. The layout doesn’t make much sense: one room gives way to the next seemingly at random, some of the floors are slanted, and a few of the doors they open just lead them directly into a brick wall. Charlie can see why the house had been so long abandoned. He can’t imagine it holding much appeal to your typical Rochester family.
They leave the kitchen for last through unspoken agreement. Charlie doesn’t believe in ghosts. Not actually. Not really. The real world provides enough horror to be getting on with, anyway.
Still, the kitchen is where the bulk of the stories he’s heard seem to take place. A ghostly old woman standing at the stove. The distant sound of a baby crying. Strange thuds from the pantry. He remembers hearing about one boy, some sixth-former that Tao used to talk about, who’d spent the night there on a dare and came away with scratch marks right down his back. When he casts his mind back, he can’t quite remember how that particular story ended.
Eventually they’ve exhausted the rest of the rooms, moving between each as Charlie manages a pretty constant stream of chatter to keep Nick distracted. He’s got an ulterior motive, too. Every time they’ve been alone recently, this unspoken… thing between them seems to be getting closer and closer to the surface.
If the house doesn’t scare him, then that does. Nick is the best friend he’s ever had; he desperately doesn’t want to mess this up. There’s so many reasons they shouldn’t: Nick’s going to uni next year, to fucking Leeds of all places, and, he’ll surely then realise that the world is so much wider than the little world he and Charlie have carved out together. Charlie can deal with that happening if he still has Nick in his life in some capacity, but having it all blow up and fizzle away to nothing is more than he can bear.
They enter the kitchen. It is, admittedly, creepy as fuck. The moon is full and high in the sky, its light encroaching through the blinds and casting everything in a dull glow. Charlie arcs his phone torch across the room, the light illuminating dusty corners and a long-abandoned kitchen table with a crack down the middle. There’s a dark stain on the peeling linoleum in the corner that he studiously ignores.
“Well, I hate this,” Nick says.
Charlie laughs. “Yeah, it doesn’t really invite you in, does it? We promised Tao we’d look, though.”
They search through the cupboards, and even inside the ancient lead-lined fridge, the bulb long since burnt out. They come away with nothing, and Charlie sighs at the thought of coming back to Tao empty-handed.
"What about in here?” Charlie says as he swings open the door in the corner. He steps in and takes his phone out, turning on the flash back on and starting to film. In the illumination, they can both see that it’s an old store cupboard. Empty shelves stretch back about four feet, cobwebbed and dusty, and there are even a few ancient cans of food lining the shelves.
“Fuck no,” Nick says, taking a step back and shaking his head.
“It would be such a good shot though!” Charlie argues. “And I do feel kind of bad that Tao isn’t getting his Blair Witch fantasy.”
“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but they all die in that film.”
“I’m very impressed you sat through it.”
Nick shrugs. “I didn’t want to upset Tao.”
Charlie glances over at him. “He does actually like you, you know.”
“If you say so.” Nick begrudgingly steps inside and picks up one of the cans. “Expires June 1987,” he reads. “God, even the non-perishables are haunted.”
Just as Charlie throws his head back to laugh, he feels a cool gust of wind blow through the cupboard. To his horror, the door slams shut behind them, leaving them in total darkness. “Shit.” Nick leaps forward, depressing the handle and pushing with all his might. “It’s stuck,” he says, panicked, when the door doesn’t budge.
“Let me try,” Charlie insists, ushering Nick off to the side and putting his shoulder up against the door to give it a shove. “Oh fuck,” he mutters as he pumps the handle up and down a few more times.
“What?” Nick asks.
“The handle, I think it’s broken. See how loose it is?”
Nick steps forward and tries it again, before quickly coming to the same conclusion as Charlie. He steps back and sits on the floor, leaning back against the wall and dropping his head into his hands. “This is a nightmare. Like, I think I actually had a nightmare about this, once.”
“The others will find us soon,” Charlie reassures him, dropping down next to him and putting an arm around his shoulders. Even in his distress, Nick leans into him immediately. “And if they don’t, at least we’ll go down in Truham legend.”
Nick groans into his hands before looking up at Charlie. “I hate you,” he complains. His face is so close that Charlie can count his eyelashes, can see the gold-shot hazel of his irises, and the little indent under his eye where the eyepatch had been digging in. He has to stop himself from reaching out and smoothing over it with his thumb.
“No, you like me,” he says instead.
Something flickers across Nick’s expression, his eyes softening. “Yeah,” he smiles. “I do.”
They look at each other for a moment. It would be so easy for Charlie to close the gap. He’s not stupid; he knows Nick wants this, too. It’s been written across every loaded touch and quiet moment for months now. Still, with the demon of self-doubt heavy on his back, inches feel like miles.
He hinges back and pushes himself to his feet, not missing the hurt and confusion that flashes across Nick’s face as he does so. He walks over and tries the door again, to no avail. Turning back to Nick, he tries to keep his voice level. “We should probably shout for help.”
Nick sighs and stands up. “Yeah. Yeah, OK.”
They stand together at the door, banging on wood and calling out to their friends for a good ten minutes. Charlie tries to text into the group chat, but none of them send. He feels a slight twinge of concern. He hopes nothing’s actually happened to them. Knowing Tao and Elle, they’re probably just busy making out in the attic. Plus, he’d pay to see a poltergeist try and reckon with Darcy.
Eventually, they give up. Charlie tuts and steps back. “Well, that was useless.”
Nick shrugs. “I guess we just need to wait it out.”
They seat themselves on the floor again, a little further apart this time. Charlie sighs and lets his head fall back against the wall. Nick is studiously staring at his hands, and Charlie looks at the ceiling as he feels a maelstrom of affection and guilt and fear vying for pride of place at the forefront of his mind. The silence stretches on long enough to become awkward, but he can’t think of anything to say except I want this and I think you want this too, but I’ve never been more scared and I know we would be fucking amazing, but if I lose you completely I don’t know if I’ll survive it and I know I’m hurting you but please just look at me again, because when I see your face everything makes sense again for a little while.
“How’s the UCAS going?” is what he settles on instead. It’s a weak effort, Charlie knows; they’ve never really done small talk, not even at the start. Still, he feels like he needs to remind himself why this is probably a terrible idea. Nick is going away, onto brighter and better things, and Charlie can’t be the one to make him second guess that. Nick’s spent so much of the past few years helping Charlie through the dark; the least he can do is return the favour.
Nick wrinkles his nose, glancing up at him. “It’s going.”
“Have you finished your personal statement?”
“...Yes?”
“Nick.”
“I’ve written a bit. I- I just don’t really know what to say.”
“What do you mean?” Charlie asks, looking at him with a frown. They’ve not really talked about Nick’s uni stuff before. He thinks they both might have been trying to pretend it’s not happening.
“It just feels like I’m expected to have all these answers about, like, who I am and what I want, but I have no idea, really.” He shrugs and meets Charlie’s eyes. “There’s only a few things in my life that I’m really sure of.”
Charlie swallows. “Like what?”
Nick sighs, looking at his hands again. “Charlie…” he starts, before cutting himself off.
“What is it?”
“Nothing,” Nick says, drawing back and pushing himself to stand. “It doesn’t matter.”
Charlie can see it: the way that Nick is second guessing himself, squashing something down and back and away deep inside, just so he can turn and give Charlie a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. He’s seen it before, like in the months before Nick came out, when he’d so clearly been grappling with something big and scary that he had no clue how to verbalise, or when he was around the rugby boys — and even with their friends, sometimes — trying desperately to bend himself into someone he thought would fit.
He’s never been like this with Charlie, not ever; the thought that he might think he has to be now suddenly makes him feel ill.
He stands up and walks over to Nick so that they are facing each other. “Nick. Talk to me.” Nick just shrugs, not making eye contact. “Please? I know I’ve been-” I know I’m fucking this up. Please don’t let me. “You can talk to me about anything, OK? I promise.”
Nick looks at him for a moment, eyes tracking across Charlie’s face. “I’m scared,” he admits.
“You know this place isn’t actually haunted, right?” Charlie asks, aiming for levity.
Nick doesn’t meet him there. Instead, he shakes his head. “That’s not what I meant.”
Charlie looks down. “I know,” he says softly. “I’m sorry. I just- so am I, you know.”
“Char?”
“Yeah?”
“Can you look at me?” Charlie meets his eyes — they are wide and imploring in the half-light. “You’re the bravest person I’ve ever met,” Nick says simply.
Charlie bites his lip. “Not about this.”
“That’s OK.” Nick gives him a small smile, before reaching out to take his hand, giving it a squeeze. “I’ll be brave for the both of us, this time. Will you let me?”
Charlie squeezes back and reminds himself that this is Nick, his Nick, and they’ve never yet faced something that they can’t handle together. Before he can second guess himself, he lifts Nick’s hand and presses a kiss to the knuckles. They’re the same hands that Nick used to throw Ben off him; the same ones that have pulled him up off the ground so many times in rugby; the same that had been clasped tightly in his when he went to his parents for help, never faltering; that had picked up the phone every time he’d called; that had shaken with nerves when he first told Charlie he thought he might not be straight; and that had knocked on Charlie’s door whenever David was being David, or when his dad missed a call, looking for solace. A whole shared history written across skin and bone; Charlie wonders how much more they could write together, if given the chance.
Fuck it, Charlie thinks. It’s high time he stops telling himself ghost stories. He’s faced far scarier things, after all.
“Yeah, go on then,” he whispers.
Nick smiles and runs his hand up Charlie’s arm to rest on the side of his neck. When he leans forward, Charlie leans forward too, carried on the momentum that has been driving them towards each other since the day they met. Nick pauses just before they make contact, smiling and running his thumb across the line of Charlie’s jaw before closing his eyes. Charlie keeps his open for a second longer, desperate to commit the moment to memory: Nick’s hand on his jaw, the sweep of his eyelashes, and the delicious, glorious relief of letting himself have everything he ever wished for.
When their lips finally meet, it’s the easiest thing in the world.
🕸️
It’s strangely quiet when Tao and Elle get back to the ground floor. Giving each other a worried look, they move back through to the living room. They find Tara, Darcy, and Isaac sitting on the floor, heads together and whispering. The trio look up with a start when a floorboard creaks under Tao’s foot, visibly relaxing when they realise who has entered the room.
“We thought you guys were goners,” Darcy says cheerfully. “There’s a massive, creepy door and stairway to god-knows-what in the basement, just so you know.”
“Yeah, and there’s absolutely no sign of Nick and Charlie,” Tara adds.
“Really?” Tao frowns. “Have you looked everywhere? And wait- what door?”
“The less said about it the better. And we’ve looked everywhere except the kitchen,” Isaac explains. “It’s fucking creepy in there. Did you guys find anything upstairs?”
“Not much. Just a ouija board,” Elle says, offhand.
The others recoil.
“A ouija board!”
“Please tell me you didn’t touch it,” Tara exclaims. “Like, that has to be against all your horror-movie rules, Tao.”
Elle and Tao look at each other. “No?” Elle tries.
Tara groans and puts her head in her hands. Isaac fixes them both with a flat look. “You asked it for relationship advice, didn’t you?”
"Maybe,” Tao acquiesces.
“Did it work, at least?”
“Yeah,” Tao grins, reaching over to take Elle's hand. “Yeah it did.”
“Well,” Darcy starts, “hopefully you didn’t accidentally curse us al-”
They’re broken off by another series of loud thuds on the wall behind them. Tao feels his heart rate kick up a notch.
“Where did that come from?” Isaac whispers.
“I think the kitchen,” Elle replies.
“Surely not,” Tao frowns. Another crash echoes out, undeniably coming from the kitchen this time.
“Shit,” Tara breathes, “we should go and check it out.”
“Now that is definitely how you die in horror films,” Darcy protests.
“What if Nick and Charlie are in trouble, though?” Elle points out.
They look at each other grimly. Tao nods and, silently, they all begin to move through to the hall.
Tao hesitates as they reach the door to the kitchen. After a nudge from Elle, he pushes it open, the hinges protesting as he does so. There’s no sign of Nick and Charlie.
“They probably left already,” he reasons, backing up a little. Is it just his imagination, or is this room colder than the rest of the house? “They’ll be back at Nick’s playing Mario Kart and pretending not to be in love with each othe-”
He’s cut off by another loud thud and a clatter, clearly coming from behind one of the doors in the corner of the room. All of them jump in shock and turn to face it.
“Oh Jesus,” Elle mutters. Darcy just nods and takes Tara’s hand, then Isaac’s.
“Elle, get behind me.” Tao takes a few steps towards the door and holds up his camera with a shaky hand. If he’s going to die, he’s at least going to go down in filmmaking legend.
Taking a deep breath, he reaches out and grasps the handle. The door opens with a few, firm tugs, sending up a cloud of dust. When it clears, the sight he is greeted with is more horrifying than he could ever imagine: one that may well haunt him until his dying day.
Charlie and Nick are pressed up against the far wall of the pantry, kissing as their lives depend on it. Nick’s hands are tight round Charlie’s waist, and Charlie’s have crept somewhere up the front of Nick’s ridiculous shirt. They’re so absorbed in each other, in fact, that they don’t even notice that the door has swung open at first.
Tao clears his throat, and the two of them spring apart like they’ve been electrocuted, both turning to face the door. Nick automatically takes a step forward, like he’s trying to put himself between Charlie and whatever threat might be coming at them. Which– cute. But still. Ugh.
No one speaks for a moment. The fake blood that had been dabbed so artfully on Charlie’s neck earlier in the night is now smeared across Nick’s face and the collar of his white, billowy pirate top.
“We-” Charlie starts, then clears his throat and goes again. “We got locked in.”
“I can see that,” Tao says, arching an eyebrow. He still has his camera up by his face, and through the viewfinder, he sees Nick take another step forward and look at something behind him.
“Darce?” Nick asks, concerned. “Are you alright?”
Tao turns to look behind him. Darcy is standing in the middle of the room, hands clasped over their mouth as Tara and Isaac are both eye them warily. Even through the green face paint, Tao can see that they’ve turned a concerning shade of red.
At Nick’s words, Darcy drops their hands and bursts out in a shout. “I. Fucking. CALLED IT.” They throw their hands up in the air. “I have never been so happy in my life.”
“To be fair,” Isaac interjects, “we all called it.”
“I am SO excited,” Darcy continues, “Nick, I love you, but the pining was getting old.”
Elle nods her head vigorously in agreement.
Nick crosses his arms and tries to glare at them both, but the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth betrays him. After a few moments, he sighs and drops the act. “Love you too, Darce.”
Tao resists rolling his eyes at Nick’s inability to maintain even faux-indignation. He can’t be too frustrated with him though — not when Charlie is standing right behind Nick, grinning from ear to ear. They make eye contact for a moment, and Tao gives Charlie a tiny, imperceptible nod: it's a well done and took you long enough and don’t you dare give me all the gory details all in equal measure. Charlie just sticks his tongue out in response.
Tao’s over the moon for Nick, too, even though he’d never admit it.
“Someone owes me money,” Elle says mildly from next to Tao. “Did I not say it would be before Christmas?”
“You guys were taking bets?” Charlie squawks, affronted.
“It was more like financially benefiting from the inevitable,” Isaac reasons.
“I am so, so happy for you both,” Tara pipes up, looking around the kitchen with a frown. “But can we please get the fuck out of here now?”
🕸️
It’s very quickly agreed that they will not be spending the night in the house, the combined discoveries in the basement and in the attic being enough to dissuade even the most hard-nosed sceptics amongst them. Piling out of the front door, they all stand on the path outside to say their goodbyes. Tao makes them promise to all upload their footage to his dropbox so he can see what he can salvage.
Nick and Charlie remain outside the house, waving as their friends set off in opposite directions. Once they’ve all disappeared from view, Charlie reaches out and tugs on the cord of Nick’s ridiculous, adorable pirate shirt. “So,” he starts, drawing out the syllable, “what do we do now?”
“Do you-” Nick starts, then blushes and looks away. “Um, well, you could come to mine?”
Charlie arches his eyebrow.
“Not like that,” Nick is quick to clarify. Then, after a pause: “well, maybe a little like that.”
Charlie laughs. “Nick Nelson, are you flirting with me?”
Nick grins and takes a step closer to Charlie, dropping his head to his shoulder. Charlie brings his arms up to pull him closer. They’ve always been tactile, so the touch and closeness isn’t new, but there’s an odd thrill in knowing for sure that Nick is as hungry for it as he is. Nick runs his hands up Charlie’s back as he murmurs something unintelligible into his shoulder.
“What was that, love?” Charlie asks. He feels his ears heat up at the accidental pet name, but Nick looks so happy when he pulls his head back that Charlie resolves to keep calling him that as much as humanly possible.
“I said,” Nick starts, clearing his throat, “I’ve actually been flirting with you for a while now.”
“Oh, have you?” Charlie replies, because whatever they are now, they’re still best friends, too, and the impulse to tease Nick is as strong as ever. He cocks his head, furrowing his brow in confusion. “Is muttering that my hair looks nice and making up excuses to hold my hand considered flirting?”
Nick gives him a knowing look. “I don’t know, Char, is making me help you rearrange the furniture in your room three times just so you can look at my arms considered flirting?”
Charlie bursts out in laughter and hides his head in his hands. “Oh my god.”
“Yeah, I clocked that one,” Nick smirks, looking far too pleased with himself.
Charlie kisses him to shut him up, because that’s something he can do now. Nick melts into it immediately, winding his arms round Charlie’s waist and pulling him closer. They kiss and kiss and kiss, cast in the shadow of the haunted house which has somehow become Charlie’s favourite place in all of Rochester.
Eventually, they pull apart. “I can’t believe our anniversary is going to be Halloween,” Charlie whispers. He gives Nick a sly smile. “We’re going to have to come back here every year to celebrate.”
“Charlie.” Nick says, deadpan. “I love you, but there is no way that’s happening.”
Charlie just grins at him stupidly. “Oh, you love me, do you?”
Nick colours. “Well, obviously. Who else would I brave a haunted house for?”
Charlie shrugs. “I dunno, Tao?”
“Charlie.”
Charlie laughs again, taking Nick’s face in his hands. “I love you, too. Just so we're clear,” he whispers. Nick’s answering smile is bright enough to illuminate even the darkest corners of Charlie’s fear; they might be standing in the darkened woods, inching ever closer to witching hour, but he knows for certain that no monsters will find them tonight.
“I think I’ve changed my mind about Halloween,” Nick muses, reaching up to put his hand over Charlie’s, then turning his face to press a kiss to his palm. “It’s really not so bad.”
“Does this mean you’ll finally watch Scream with me?”
Nick grimaces. “If I have to.”
“There’s six of them, by the way. At least four are actually good.”
“In that case,” Nick replies, dropping their joined hands to their sides and tugging Charlie along, “bring it on.”
They start off down the path, hand in hand, back towards Nick’s house and the rest of their lives. As they disappear into the woods, the house remains: a silent sentinel in the dark, waiting patiently for the next group of misfit teenagers to darken its door. There’s no-one left to see it when, in the first-floor window, a single light flicks on.