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“Please don’t summon demons in the bathroom,” Colby reads the red sign hanging in the toilet stall.
He pans the camera back to Sam, who comically hides the black candle behind his back. “Whaaat?” he says, ogling the sign and tilting his head innocently. “We would never!”
The sign is draped over a blurry milkglass window whose significance he doesn’t quite get. It’s not like anyone would really use this bathroom when it’s light outside. And besides, the red lighting inside makes any light from the outside unnecessary.
Theoretically, he and Colby are currently filming an investigation in one of the world’s most haunted locations that is still in use. Practically, they are experiencing difficulties fitting into the small, apparently insanely haunted and crazy demonic bathroom.
Sam has a huge rucksack on his back which does not help the situation. All their equipment is in there, though, everything they carefully packed to get a convincing performance tonight, so discarding it into the hallway isn’t an option. At least he’s put the candles away by now.
“This bathroom is tiny,” Colby mutters as he almost hits his hip on the sink. “Let’s get out for a sec. I’m getting claustrophobia in here.”
Sam nods, backing away from the bathroom. The hallway isn’t much better, it’s a slim space with the walls on both sides covered in trippy red-and-black decorations, photographs (mostly faded Polaroids with groups of teenagers in them), old records, small mirrors and band posters. Outdated, new, ancient, local bands, world stars, it’s all there, stacking on top of each other and plastering the wall.
He can almost see the people crowding back here on busy nights, shoving each other, talking, the music hammering through the walls. Smoke collecting on the ceiling, the smells mixing, making it hard to breathe for a non-smoker.
He can see people passing pills and joints back and forth, exchanging what they have, knowing that no one here will tell on them. He can smell the bodies, sweaty from dancing and other activities that take place in bars like this.
Now it’s empty, the only smell being the lingering smoke that refuses to be cleaned out of the fabric.
Colby hands Sam the camera, and he walks to the end of the hallway – or the beginning. There, where people enter it, anyways – and starts recording to get a few good clips of how it looks inside here. He has to admit, he is impressed by the design, even though it is not the place he usually goes to, to blow off steam. He and Colby usually prefer more closed establishments, and lighter. He’s getting a headache from this lighting.
At the real end of the hallway, there’s a full body mirror leaning against the wall. He steps in front of it and flinches back slightly as he sees himself in it. On second glance, he’s not sure what made him react that way. He’s had his fair share of scary artefacts; masks, weapons, chairs (especially rocking chairs), puppets, dolls, cursed paintings. But mirrors are definitely overused.
No, now he sees what’s wrong with the image. The hallway around him seems to stretch out infinitely to both sides, leaving him standing in a red-black-lighted room on a glistening floor of red and black marble tiles that look like a checkers board. He’s pretty sure the red tiles are actually white, but you can never tell in a lighting like this. It really is giving him a headache, now accompanied by a familiar tingle in his stomach as he stares at his red form in the infinite mirror.
“Yo, Colby,” he calls out to the brunet. “Check out this mirror!”
His voice is slightly more upbeat than before, matching the excitement starting to bubble up inside him. Colby walks up to him, staring at his reflection. It takes him a few seconds, but finally, he seems to realise, and his eyes widen.
“Whoa, what?” he exclaims, stepping closer as if he could peer into the room that’s portrayed inside the mirror. “That’s insane! It looks like an infinite room or something.”
“I know, right? It’s crazy, how is something like that even done?” Sam asks, trying to capture the entire trippy image by swivelling the camera around in both directions.
“I don’t know, man. That actually looks lowkey terrifying – like, we can’t know if there’s something in the corners left and right because we can’t see them,” Colby says, and Sam cringes at the thought.
“Don’t say that!” he hisses, despite the tug of thrill he feels at those words. “Why would you ever say something like that!”
Colby shrugs innocently. Then Sam lowers the camera.
“Alright, how are we doing this?” he asks.
They have been here for at least an hour, getting shown around by the bar’s owner. He was a grumpy old man, insisting that there is something haunted about the entire location. Something making people commit suicide. An eighteen-year-old boy, found hung from the ceiling of the dance floor in the nineties. Another boy found with slit wrists in the toilets ten years later. A third boy, found dead in the same bathroom stall in 2022 with a bag of pills next to him – overdose. Sam isn’t too sure about that last one’s cause of death because they did look the news up and everything about it seems a little too unclear. Unsure. Undefined. Meaning, no one really knows what happened, and people just decide that it was a suicide because it’s easier.
Which is perfect for him and Colby. Their job is based on the undefined borders of reality, like black candles, red lighting, Latin chants and whatever else people possibly come up with. All demonic or worse satanic. But even worse are pentagrams, even though those are just stars turned upside down. Ironic, isn‘t it? Change some small detail about something, turn it upside down, and society labels it as wrong. And when society decides something is good for summoning demons, that‘s the truth, even Sam and Colby can‘t change that. Even Sam and Colby, the famous ghosthunters, real-life-ghostbusters, paranormal investigators, can‘t budge the opinion of the society when it comes to symbols, meanings of those symbols, and what they‘re used for.
They don‘t plan on doing that, though, why would they? Why change something that makes their job so, so much easier? „They make people believe.“ No, society makes itself believe. It‘s that easy, really. Uncertain deaths and symbols just make it easier.
Colby lets out a low breath, looking around. “I mean, we have three hours left,” he says. “So, we better get started, right?”
“Let’s go to the main area. We need to keep the bathroom for our last challenge,” Sam says hesitantly. He looks at the stalls with the red lighting, the walls full of pictures. Compared to the normally lighted bar and dancing area, this feels more like the atmosphere they’re aiming for. But, for the video, it is necessary to keep it for the last ten or twenty minutes.
Three steps with glowing borders down, almost looking like they’re backstage of a concert hall, then around the corner, and through a thick dark door. The lights in the main area are mostly off, and Sam blinks as the whole world looks green and blue when they step out of the red bathroom area.
“Did the owner leave already?” Sam asks, looking around to make sure he isn’t luring behind a corner like he did when they arrived.
“Yeah, said he didn’t want to stay when the place is closed,” Colby replies. He doesn’t seem fazed by this, instead he’s running a distracted hand over the counter. “We have the entire thing to us.”
Sam zooms in on the decorative bottles of alcohol behind the counter. He doesn’t suppose that they’re real – some of them are obviously for aesthetic purposes –, but they definitely fit the vibe. “All of it?” he asks, wiggling his eyebrows at Colby, who laughs out loud.
“Yeeeeah,” the brunet says, lowering his voice. “Let’s just spend the entire night here and not do the investigation in the first place.” He jokingly reaches out for the closest bottle and holds it up in the air. Sam joins in in the laughing, shaking his head. There’s nothing he’d like to do less.
Knowing that they wouldn’t have the time, they planned ahead and filmed the information part yesterday right before they left. Of course, the owner of the bar – Ricky, he called himself, Sam didn’t remember his last name – had more to tell them, recounting the details of the stories they’d heard online.
“I didn’t even notice him leave,” Sam says and goes to set up the camera on the counter, from where it can overview the entire bar and dance floor.
Colby chuckles and opens another door, the one leading to the VIP area to check there. “He was just like, nope, I’m outta here, and disappeared.”
“Very reassuring,” Sam says, stretching the e in very. “I feel really safe now. It’s just us two, alone.”
The first investigation without guests in a long god dang time. Sam claps his hands together. Yes, he is ready. The entire lower floor of the building is empty except for them, which means? Every sound they will hear can be anything. There aren’t many options on what a muffled footstep from around the corner could be, though. And he really hopes they will get loads of those.
The tingles in his stomach crawl higher reaching his hands, which he rubs together now. This is supposed to be the most haunted place they have visited in a long time. And he can’t help but hope, not just for the viewers or the video, but for himself, that this will be as demonic as promised. Even though he’s standing in the middle of it. Especially because he’s standing in the middle of it.
“So, one of the three boys was found hung from the ceiling somewhere in here,” he says, gesturing around the room. Colby, standing next to him, nods and glances at the ceiling.
“I mean, it could be basically everywhere,” Sam adds, grabbing the camera to show the bars and lights hanging everywhere above them. “This place is filled with metal rods.”
“But those are too high to reach,” Colby replies, stretching as if trying to grab one. Of course, it doesn’t work. It’s not meant to work, just to demonstrate that no one was tall enough to reach them.
“Well, he would’ve taken a chair,” Sam says. “Or wait, try the counter. Maybe from there.”
Colby obliged, climbing onto the counter swiftly. “Wait, didn’t they say he was found when the owner from back then had come to check up on the place after it closed?” he asks, reaching for the metal bars. From here, he would be able to throw a rope around them and knot it.
“He was slumped next to the counter in a puddle of blood, even. The rope had snapped, and he’d hit his head on the counter.” He lets go of the bars to jump down from the counter. “Too weak to get up, James bled out on the floor.”
“Why do that in a bar, though?” Sam asks.
“Maybe he had nowhere to go and didn’t want to leave? And then he never did?” Colby suggests.
“Scary thought. He must have planned it, though, hiding somewhere until everyone is gone…” Sam shudders slightly. “Imagine wanting to leave this earth so badly and then not be able to, despite dying.”
“Horrible,” Colby agrees, looking at the corner of the counter. They stay silent for a moment, a small tribute to the boy who ended his life for a reason they can’t possibly know.
“Alright, let’s get started,” Sam says, not wanting to get hung up on depressing topics too long. He hands Colby the camera and quickly gives an overview over their evening. “Our aim here is to find out the truth; did those boys really kill themselves because a spirit made them, and if so, why would they still be here? And who is this fourth, more dangerous spirit? Are the rumours true, is a demon haunting these walls?
“We’re going to start here in the main area, then move over to the VIP area – which should be quick because there are no stories about it, and we don’t know how much we’ll get – and lastly turn to the bathrooms.” He takes a tense breath and claps his hands together again. “Because that’s apparently where the most demonic entity of this place resides.”
“Let’s summon some demons,” Colby says. His lower lip quivers, and Sam knows he’s about to laugh, but he looks into the camera seriously.
“In some bathrooms,” he finishes the sentence. He seriously needs to get a good picture of that sign. With himself, posing in front of it maybe. The hood pulled down? It’s too good not to, plus, everyone knows they won’t listen to it.
The main area is boring, to say the least. The words the spirit box spits out, the creaks, the reactions of the EMF readers, it’s nothing that Sam hasn’t seen a thousand times before. He is uneasy, but well aware that it’s got nothing to do with the location. It is because he is desperate.
Every time the spirit box answers unclearly, a random word, something which has nothing to do with the situation, it feels like a blow to his gut. Every time, he has to suppress a sigh, force himself not to clench his jaw. Instead, he looks at Colby with a confused face and comes up with a possible explanation.
“James, we’re really sorry that happened to you,” Colby addresses the first spirit. “Do you want to tell us why you’re still here?”
“Step across.”
“Into the after world? You can’t step across?” Sam says, looking at Colby. It is possible, he tells himself. Maybe they really are talking to a spirit boy who died at twenty-something, here, right in front of them. Maybe that was his voice, telling them that he can’t cross over.
But it’s not enough. Sam stares at the spirit box, willing it to say something. Something that could convince him. But it stays silent, filling the room with static. The sound presses on his ears. This place gives me a headache.
“Sam,” Colby says silently. “You alright?” Of course, he would notice.
“Just a slight headache,” he replies. It is true, and a good reason why he would be distracted, when the actual reason behind it is pure desperation.
His friend nods slowly. “Tell me if you need a break,” he says, his voice soft and reassuring. Sam forces a smile.
“It’s fine,” he replies, and cringes at himself. But it is fine.
The answers they get continue not making any sense if you think logically, and the desperation, the frustration Sam feels grows continuously. He’s getting itchy, unable to stand still, unable to hide his discomfort. But it is possible, he tells himself. Just because it’s… difficult to communicate, it doesn’t mean that it’s not true.
Sam never prays. He believes in the option of God, not more. Spending time praying to Him feels pathetic, as if he is giving his life out of his own hands. But when Colby asks about the demon apparently staying in these walls, Sam prays like never before, begging to anyone who can hear him that they will get a good answer. An answer so direct even he can’t put it off as coincidence.
At the same time, he knows, there simply is no such answer.
And when the spirit box stays silent, all the excitement that filled him over the course of the evening, vanishes in the matter of a few seconds, leaving him drained. And disappointed, so disappointed.
“That’s so weird,” Colby whispers. “Why would he suddenly stay silent like that?”
“Maybe he doesn’t talk about whatever it is,” Sam replies, feeling his focus slip away. But he keeps his back straight, his shoulders tense. No one needs to see how he feels about it. It is possible, he tells himself again, and again, and again.
The spirit box refuses to spit out any words anymore, except for a few times where they’ll have to rewatch the footage at least five times in half the speed to understand it. Sam intently stares at the equipment while Colby looks around the room, examining the dark corners their light doesn’t reach.
Colby believes. And Sam envies him for it. He doesn’t need the constant reassurance; he doesn’t have to convince himself over and over again. And God, Sam wishes, he could be just as open, just as ready to believe. He wishes the silence of the spirit box were enough to make his eyes widen, the hairs on his arms stand up, the belief in his mind more anchored.
But it isn’t, and he curses himself for being like this, unable to accept it. Sam feels hopeless. The last few investigations have been constantly the same, and he never feels that scared tickle he loves so, so much. The way his stomach would lurch, his heartbeat rapidly speed up, that doesn’t happen. Not anymore.
“You sure you’re okay, man?” Colby asks again, and Sam’s head snaps up. He didn’t even notice the way he was staring at the spirit box, not blinking, not reacting in any way.
“Yeah, I’m alright,” he replies, lifting his gaze but not looking at the brunet. Colby would know that he isn’t. He’s exhausted, frustrated, desperate. He’s so done with this shit. Talking to radio waves, static, to blinking cat toys. Come on now, that is the peak of ludicrousness.
Sam clenches his jaw. How long have they been here? How much time have they spent trying to get a sense out of random words? He checks his phone. Half an hour. That means, they still have two and a half left. God, he can’t wait for that to be over.
The hopelessness sinks in, and this time, he doesn’t fight it. This place is shit, despite the eerie vibes. Someone probably just dropped a glass and blamed it on an imaginary ghost, making up the entire story.
People like that are the worst. Using people like him and Colby, who want to (or do, in Colby’s case) believe, who would do anything to prove it to themselves and to others. Great, now he feels like a fool, thinking about the Conjuring house, about Cody and Satori, and their method, the way they would talk to ghosts and spirits. And everyone trying to debunk them, even Kris saying the method was fake. Even Kris. It hurts more than he wants to admit.
Sam tries to suppress the anger that surges up inside him, and tries to ignore the memories, the way they were fooled into believing it all was real. Abigail probably never even existed. He feels so foolish, so childish, for immediately believing them. His need to believe had made him blind, naïve, had made jumping to conclusions so easy. And then everyone had said that it is fake, and it had been like he’d fallen from a ten yards’ height flat on his back, the impact pressing all air out of his lungs, making him realise how foolish he had been to climb so high.
He hadn’t managed to get up yet.
“I don’t think we’ll get anything more here,” he says, forcing himself to stop spiralling, to stop cursing himself. He is still filming a video right now. He cannot let himself go yet.
“Yeah, let’s get to the VIP area,” Colby says, looking at him sceptically.
Sam sucks at hiding things from his best friend, but he needs to. He can’t talk about this, not right now, but also not in a few hours. They have talked about it before, expressing the way they’d love to experience something actually haunted, something that couldn’t be debunked. They have joked about Sam saying he wants to levitate and be thrown across a room. They have joked and laughed, but not once has Colby said he doesn’t believe. Not once has he expressed any doubt in the paranormal.
It feels like that’s separating them more and more. Colby is content with their usual videos (except for Hell Week, they need to do something special then, even he agrees), never complaining. And Sam can’t complain because he doesn’t want to disappoint the brunet.
He can’t admit that he’s still not convinced. After everything they’ve experienced.
Colby reaches for the camera and Sam gathers their stuff, in silence. In silence, they walk over to the door, in silence, they reach the VIP area. It’s nothing special, the entire club is shabby and run-down, but it has its own flair. It’s a surprise a place like this even has a VIP area, but Sam guesses it isn’t too hard to get up here. From here, you can overview the entire dance floor, the bar, the small stage. Absentmindedly, he reaches for the camera and makes sure to get a few good clips to edit into the video later on.
“Sam,” Colby says from right behind him, and he flinches at the tone of the brunet.
“Jeez man,” he says, trying to sound light-hearted. “You almost made me drop the camera.”
Colby gently takes it from his hands and places it on the table in the booth they’re in. He crosses his arms in front of his chest and looks at Sam expectantly.
“What?” he asks nonchalantly, as if he doesn’t know exactly what Colby wants.
“Talk to me, man. What’s going on?” he asks, scanning the blond’s face.
“Nothing,” he replies, way too quickly, way too defensively. “Why- what do you mean?”
“You’ve been off for almost all evening. Just tell me what you’re thinking about.”
Sam sighs, biting the inside of his cheek. “Not now,” he says, lowering his gaze. “Not here. Can we just continue?”
Colby seems discouraged, disappointed by this. Of course he is disappointed. It feels like that’s the only emotion towards Sam lately. He clenches his jaw and sets the backpack down behind the camera to take out a few pieces of equipment. Colby watches him do it, his gaze burning on Sam’s skin. Why couldn’t the brunet just drop it?
Surprisingly enough, and with great reluctance, he does. ️They set up the camera on the table of the booth and position themselves with their backs to the railing. The equipment is placed on the chairs which are covered in a soft, thick fabric, almost a direct contradiction to the rest of the establishment.
While they go on with the investigation, Sam manages to fake his interest and hide his growing frustration pretty well – at least in front of the camera. Judging by Colby’s glances in his direction, the brunet isn’t convinced. And yet, he goes along with it. Colby never disappoints Sam. He never give him a reason to not feel safe around him, never says anything to make him uncomfortable.
The blond watches Colby’s eyes roam around the room as he asks the spirits to talk to them. It’s like a stupid déjà-vu. Every one of their investigations is, and yet he musters up the hope that it will be different day after day, week after week. Even Sam doesn’t know how he keeps this up, how he keeps his smile, his honesty, his laugh. Because day after day, week after week, they encounter “spirits” and “demons” and “ghosts”, people who were alive at one point, people who should be able to give coherent answers.
And yet, they don’t. Answers, yes. Words, yes. Sounds, yes. But the fact that they never make as much sense as he wants them to is driving Sam insane. His expectations are high, he knows that. How could they not be, after everything he and Colby have experienced? Every single investigation drives them a little higher, and higher, and higher, until he knows they can’t be met. By nothing.
Colby asks, “Why are you still here?”
And the spirit box answers, “Spirals.”
And Sam scoffs. He just can’t help it, can’t prevent himself from giving in to the frustration. This is stupid, can’t Colby see it? They’re talking to a literal radio, expecting intelligent answers. This is nuts. But the brunet doesn’t see it, doesn’t understand it, can’t give in.
“Why spirals?” he ponders, not even hearing Sam. “Some kind of loop, maybe? The energy spiralling here, unable to leave?”
Maybe. Or maybe Colby is just fucking unable to see how stupid that sounds.
“Like a residual energy,” Sam helps him out without actually wanting to. But the sooner they’re done with this, the sooner he can go back to the hotel and throw himself on his bed to forget about all of this. Until it is time for the next investigation.
He feels a little like a trapped spirit himself. In the constant flow of videos, investigations, editing, travelling, doing this, doing that. Never catching a break, just spiralling in a life he once wished for.
Now these thoughts are new, and he is surprised by them himself. They have been in the back of his mind for a long time, but he’s never cared to voice them, not even in his head. But it makes sense, for them to bubble up in a moment of annoyance like this.
He lifts his gaze, opens his mouth, and the door of the booth they’re in crashes shut.
Colby yells an indistinct, “Oh, fuck!”, jumps backwards until he’s touching the railing, but Sam freezes, his heart thumping in his chest. His eyes wide, he scans the door. There is no one here. No one here.
No one here who could’ve done that.
His breath hitches in his throat as he grabs the camera, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. He doesn’t let it show, but it is there, evident in the way he walks to the door, opening it cautiously. Stepping out of the booth, he turns the camera from one end of the hallway to the other. No one here.
“Hello?” he calls out. Typical white-boy-move in horror movies. Stupid-white-boy move, actually. But he doesn’t care. Because should there really be anyone – anything, specifically – to reply to his call, he wants to see it.
It’s fucked up, in some ways, you know? Having this voice in his head, telling him, “What’s the worst that can happen? Well, if you get shoved over the railing by a ghost, at least it is a cool death. Well, if you get possessed and go on a rampage before killing yourself, at least people will remember you. And at least you will have no choice but to believe it yourself.” Scratch that, it is not just fucked up in some ways. But he genuinely doesn’t mind as he turns his back on the dark hallway, giving anything that could be there one last chance to show up, to give him proof. He’s daring his luck, he knows that. He’s daring himself not to be afraid, to be provocative, to be fucking stupid, but he can’t help it.
Then he steps back into the booth and shakes his head. “No one here,” he speaks his thoughts. The adrenaline, the fear, it all disappears within less than half a minute.
It wasn’t always that way. His fear used to last hours sometimes. With disdain, he remembers the few times his body would go numb, and he would start trembling, the insecurity so deep in his bones he couldn’t find his way out of it until hours later, when they were comfortably sitting in a non-haunted hotel, or at home.
Nowadays, a jump scare like that leaves him empty, with the craving of more. More what? He doesn’t know. Adrenaline. Tension. Fear.
Colby mutters something about how weird that was, because there’s no wind, no nothing, but Sam couldn’t care less. He nods, convincing his best friend that he’s listening, but also trying to convince himself that this is real – the door slamming just proving it, right? He almost manages to do that, to hype himself up. To enjoy the tingles in his stomach.
And then, a few minutes later, the door slams again, and even though he flinches, he doesn’t feel it deep within his bones like he did before. Once, that is a mystery. Twice, and he is almost sure that it was caused by a slant in the door frame, or some other misconstruction. And yet, he steps deeper into the hallway, this time without camera, looking to his left and to his right, staring at the darkness.
Daring someone, anyone to show themselves, begging for them to do so, even without the hope that it will actually happen. The only light in the hallway comes from the camera’s light inside the booth, casting a distorted shadow over the ground. As Sam stares into the darkness, his eyes dry, and he starts seeing figures. Movements, eerily slow, caused by his eyes. Nothing more.
And still, he stares, he looks, taking in every movement his eyes conjure up.
“Sam?” Colby asks, startling him so that he whips his head around. “You alright, man?”
“Yeah,” he replies slowly, “just thought I saw something.” It isn’t a lie, is it? An exaggeration, barely. A wish, even, but not a blatant lie.
“Wait, really?” Colby asks, immediately stepping next to him with the camera.
“Yeah, just like a movement. I don’t know, it’s dark, and my eyes are tired,” he quickly explains, already wanting to take it back. Who is he fooling? Certainly not himself. But Colby doesn’t doubt him.
Of course, he doesn’t. He’s Colby.
“It was probably just my eyes playing tricks on me,” he concludes, shaking his head.
“Or it might be something telling us we should get out of the booth,” Colby says. His tone changes and grows more excited to build tension. “To get on with our next challenge…”
The highlight of the evening. Sam’s gut twists even when just thinking about it, in a mixture of excitement and dread. Yes, this will be the best part of the video. The most exciting part to film. The scariest moments of the video. It will answer the question, is this place really as haunted as people say?
But while it could prove the answer to be yes, which Sam desperately hoped, it could just as well disappoint both of them.
Sam isn’t as excited for it as he hoped. It doesn’t sound tempting, like it does usually. But he can’t let that ruin the mood of the video.
“Let’s do it,” he says, nodding.
The stuff gets packed back into their bags, and they return to the main area. How long have they been at it? Two hours, at least. Sam doesn’t even remember what they did half the time, having spent most of it in his thoughts. He needs to focus, usually he’s not this distracted. Usually, it’s fun, even despite not being able to believe everything one hundred percent.
“Now we’re going to split up,” Colby explains after turning on the camera, and Sam quickly straightens his back. “One of us will try to contact the spirits from the outside of the building, and the other one… Is going to be investigating the bathroom area.”
“All alone,” Sam adds, raising his eyebrows significantly. He slowly raises his hand, inch by inch. Colby doesn’t notice until he glances over, yelping and touching the tip of his nose. But Sam was quicker, and he damns himself for the reflex. Because one thing he does not want is to investigate the outside of the building. It’s cold and very much not haunted.
“Dang it!” Colby curses. “That wasn’t fair! We need to do a rematch.”
“Aw man,” Sam sighs, shrugging. How inconvenient.
“Rock, paper, scissors?” Colby suggests. And for the next two minutes, the two grown up men are playing rock, paper, scissors, shoot in an empty and dark club, their voices echoing through the room – one trying to win, the other desperate to lose.
And then Colby wins. Sam chose paper, Colby switches to scissors in the last moment and yells in victory. Sam groans and buries his face in his hands, “Nooo! Why would you do that?”
Obviously, he’s just as relieved and happy as Colby on the inside. He wants to give this place one last chance, wants to see if there’s really something here. Come on, he thinks. I’ll be locked inside the demonic toilets. Alone. What better situation would there be for a spirit to show itself?
Colby is still grinning when they get the stuff and Sam grabs the backpack. Shaking his head, the brunet reaches out for it. “You only get the camera and spirit box,” he says with a sly grin. “And… the other thing.”
“Come on, man!” Sam exclaims. “How scary do you want to make it?”
“Yes,” Colby says, laughing loudly. Sam looks at the camera in disappointment, his arms dropping to his sides.
“Fine, whatever, I guess you want me to get possessed today,” he says, his tone playfully defeated. “Everything you say just makes it worse.”
Everything Colby says just makes it better. Only a spirit box, a camera, and the thing they prepared. He doesn’t trust the spirit box, not anymore, but it’s by far the scariest piece of equipment they have – who knows what he’ll hear. It’s just radio frequencies, he knows that, but he can always turn it off if he feels like it isn’t working.
With a dreadful lump forming in his stomach, he stares at the empty hallway. Come on, he thinks again. Come on, come on, come on…
Of course, nothing happens, and Sam has a hard time not letting that get to him. You only stared at a hallway, he scolds himself, of course nothing is going to happen. He’s going to have to do more.
Colby’s voice snaps him back into reality. “… Sam? Did you hear what I said?”
He looks up, meeting the brunet’s gaze. “Sorry, I wasn’t listening.”
The look of confusion on his face is replaced through deeply furrowed brows and eyes that scan over Sam’s slightly jumbled expression. “Dude, are you sure you want to do this? You seem a bit off.”
“No, I’m fine,” he said, shaking his head, but trying not to seem too eager.
“Alright, if you say so,” Colby says, and Sam knows he has to pull himself together or his best friend will stop the entire thing.
But he hands Sam the camera, spirit box, and candle anyway, offering them to him with a small smirk. The blond takes them with a scoff, and before he can object any further, he’s standing on the dance floor – all alone in the dark.
He waits for Colby’s steps to disappear in the dark, for the door to shut with a bang, for silence to fill the room, before releasing a long breath. The camera is running already. He doesn’t remember turning it on.
“So, Colby just left,” he whispers. “And I’m all alone in here. I’m not even in the most haunted spot yet, and I already feel like…” The words die on his lips. He restarts. “I have this weird feeling…” He doesn’t need to finish the sentence, it’s obvious anyway. He doesn’t need to do anything except for getting done with this.
Clearing his throat and straightening his back, he points the camera at the closed door behind which he knows the bathroom area to be. Without a word, he walks closer, slowly pushing the door open. The red light immediately floods the room and his eyes, but he doesn’t blink, doesn’t flinch. The camera, overwhelmed with the sudden lighting, shows a bright red screen for a few seconds before adjusting. When Sam closes the door and points the camera at the hallway, he can see himself in the mirror. He looks tiny, fragile almost. Lost.
The silence is overwhelming. He doesn’t know if it’s the thick walls or the stuffy air, but every breath he takes feels like it’s the only thing keeping him sane. So, he stops breathing. Just for a few seconds, he listens to the silence, enjoys the way it presses on his ears.
Suddenly, he remembers the camera in his hand as something else than just a provider of security. He clears his throat, walking through the hallway. His hand finds the switch on the spirit box, and static fills the room. He’s almost disappointed at the loss of the silence, but he knows it’s better this way.
“Hello,” he says, trying to speak over the static. His voice feels hollow, unnatural. Unnecessary. “Is there anyone here?”
The boy with the slit wrists here had had no family in the town. He lived and worked in a restaurant down the street. That’s all the people ever found out about him, he’d never talked about family or friends. No one had ever reported him as missing, and apparently he wasn’t worth doing DNA tests. The name he’d given was fake, as was his ID. It was almost as if he’d never really existed.
All Sam knows about him is the name on the fake ID.
“David,” he tries. “David, if you’re here, please give me a sign. I have this box here, you can say something and I’ll understand.”
Nothing. But that’s unusual, isn’t it?
“That’s weird,” he says, “we always get something on the spirit box.”
Right on cue, it cracks loudly. No words, no sentences, just a loud popping sound echoing through the hallway. Sam flinches, almost dropping the box. His fingers clench around it, and he accidentally clicks the switch, turning it off. It’s not supposed to echo here, Sam thinks before letting out a low, “Holy fuck, what was that?”
His finger scrambles to turn it on again, but the box stays silent. He frowns, setting the camera down on a small shelf on the wall, between an empty picture frame and a vinyl.
“I turned it off by accident, I got scared, and it’s not turning on anymore.” He demonstratively shows it to the camera, clicking the switch on and off again. Then he puts it down next to the camera, getting out the flashlight.
“Guess we have to continue like this,” he mutters, and then, louder, “unless you want to communicate in any other way.” Whoever you are, he wants to add.
But even as he sets up the flashlight, there is nothing. No answers, and the silence feels less frightening. It’s less full.
“It’s like… I don’t know, the room felt so full when I came in here,” he mutters, crouching on the ground. “Maybe it was just the air that I got used to or something, but it’s less full now. Less stuffed,” he tries to explain it. “I don’t know. It feels like something left. Which would make sense… Or that there was nothing here to begin with.”
His voice gets more frustrated as he glances at the camera.
“Fuck it.”
He grabs the candle and takes a lighter out of his pocket. Then he takes the camera, leaving the flashlight and broken spirit box in the hallway as he enters the toilet stall furthest away from the entrance. The candle is small and round, easy to balance as he sets it down in the small sink. The camera with the tripod fits on the windowsill of the small window, overviewing the entire stall as he looks at himself in the mirror.
Without saying a word, he closes the door and locks it. His hand freezes on the knob the second it clicks shut. It feels like he can’t breathe.
His chest is getting pressed together, and it’s almost like the air is filled with… something he can’t quite place. Something he can’t breathe, either.
And he knows, if there’s a moment he’ll catch anything, it’s now. His hand would be shaking if he weren’t holding it on the doorknob. Shaking with excitement.
His hand leaves the knob and goes to take the lighter. It clicks twice, the sound eerily loud, before the flame flickers up. He looks at it for a second. Opens his mouth, glances up at the camera. He’s probably supposed to explain something.
He looks back at himself in the mirror, sees the stern expression. His face doesn’t relax, even as he tries to. The black candle is heavy in his hand when he takes it, holding the flame against the wick until it catches fire. It doesn’t flicker as he puts the lighter back in his pocket, not one bit. The air stands still, and so does the fire. So does his face as he stares at himself in the mirror.
The minutes tick by. He tries to remember what he’s supposed to say, tries to think of any names or facts, or literally anything, but his mind is empty, and his mouth is sealed. He’s calm, even as he feels himself sink into his reflection, as he sees his face morph, the candle move, the shadows on his face distort.
He doesn’t even notice at first. It’s the simple change in lighting, the sudden loss of the source of light in his hands, that makes him look down. It’s the small drop of wax running over his fingers that makes him pull his hand away rapidly, that makes him throw the candle into the sink. Black wax splatters over the white porcelain, but the flame is long gone.
His heart is thundering as the realisation dawns on him. There is no breeze here. But the flame went out, seconds before he dropped the candle.
Picking up the candle from the sink, he curses himself for throwing it away like that. Now the wick is drenched in wax, and he can’t tell if there’s anything that made it go out naturally. Stupid, stupid, stupid. But one thing he can tell is that there’s more wax than he’d expected there to be after only a few minutes.
Sam takes a deep breath, supporting himself on the sink. His hands clench around the porcelain.
“Is there-” he says, but his voice breaks. He clears his throat and tries again, “Is there anyone here with me? Right now?” The words feel useless.
A creak. Right behind him. The sound is like a gunshot in the silence, but he doesn’t dare turning around. Every one of his movements feels dangerous.
“Did you make the candle go out?”
No answer. Silence, twice as loud as before. But Sam knows. He can feel it, behind himself. Unmoving. Unresponsive. And he knows why.
Mechanically, he reaches out for the camera. Tension pools in his stomach, mixed with a tinge of excitement… a lot of excitement. He has to do this. Now or never. Now or never.
It makes a small sound as the red light flickers off, followed by the screen. A sound he’s so used to – but it sounds so much better in here. It’s a relief, almost.
He puts the camera back on the windowsill, not sparing it another glance as he looks around in the tight room. His arms are almost touching the walls on both sides, the back of his legs hit the closed toilet. There’s no space left in the room, and it feels like there’s not enough air left either. But this is what he wanted, right?
Right?
There’s no time to hesitate. Or to do anything at all. Way too soon, he hears the door opening, and steps, Colby’s steps in the hallway. Sam scrambles to get the camera and turn it on again, not even bothering to check what time it is. Is he supposed to stop already?
He looks at the lens with a crooked smile, ignoring the way it doesn’t feel different from before. He can’t feel the change in the atmosphere like he did before. And maybe that should worry him more than it does.
The steps stop right in front of the door, and Sam reaches his hand out to open it. But something feels wrong. Why isn’t Colby saying anything? Is he just standing there?
“Colby?” Sam calls out. No answer. Goosebumps crawl all over his arms. “Colby, man, are you fucking with me? This isn’t funny.”
Nothing, nothing, nothing. Nothing except for silence and air so thick you could slice it with a knife. Sam’s hand draws back from the door handle. His face is pale, the camera is carelessly at his side, barely catching his expression.
“Colby?” he tries again, hopelessly. But there has to be something outside the door, there has to be. He can feel it, the presence, the stare – but maybe it’s just his mind playing tricks on him. Again.
His gaze falls down to the camera and he is quick to lift it up again, pointing it at the door.
“I swear I just heard someone walking,” he says, his voice more genuine than it’s been the entire evening. “I thought it was Colby, but he wouldn’t do that. And it wasn’t like a few steps or so, it was literally from the door to here. I don’t know if I got it on camera, but I heard the door open too…” He’s silent for a few moments, debating his options.
But things like this are why he’s here.
Sam reaches out for the doorhandle.
It’s locked.
He twists and turns it, tries the lock in all directions, but it doesn’t budge. Sam swallows thickly, placing the camera on the sink. But even both hands don’t help.
“What the fuck…?” he whispers, pulling and pushing at the door. “Hey! COLBY! If you’re doing this, this isn’t funny!”
No reaction. Sam’s gut twists. In fear, obviously, what else? The trembling in his hands, the weakness in his knees, the light-headedness… it’s all because of the fear. The fear that’s coursing through his veins, filling his head with all kinds of horrifying images…
He steps back. The door won’t open, okay. He should probably text Colby about it. The phone is in his back pocket, just waiting to be picked up. But then it would be over. And although the fear filling Sam up, making him check over his shoulder all the time is real, realer than ever before, he can’t quite give up yet.
“Okay,” he says, sitting down on the closed toilet. “If whatever is here wants to show itself, now is the moment.” Despite the trembling, his voice fills up the small space of the toilet stall. “Come on, I’m here. All alone. David?”
The name. It’s the name. The second Sam speaks it, all the air gets sucked out of his lungs, out of the room. He’s breathing fine, and yet his heartrate picks up and he can feel how the energy gets sucked out of his limbs.
“Not David then,” he mutters without realising. “Something else. Are you… did you…”
The words get stuck in his throat. He takes another deep breath, calming his racing heart.
“Are you the one who… made David, uh… are you responsible? For his suicide?”
Raging agreement floods his mind, and Sam can feel his limbs stiffen. His vision blurs at the edges, blind spots dance all over the wall. Trying to focus his eyes hurts, and nausea fills him. Something is wrong.
“Okay,” he whispers. “Why?”
And then, a second later, he hears himself mutter, “power.”
Power. He has no power. Sam feels lifeless, limp. Powerless. Sucked dry. Empty. He tries to say something, but only a strangled sound escapes his throat. His heart is racing, his thoughts are slowing down. And everything feels so, so goddamn wrong. Fuck.
“Colby,” he rasps, his voice raw in the silence. His hand is weak when he reaches into his back pocket. The phone is there, waiting for his hands. It slips out of his fingers the second he grasps it. The sound it makes on the bathroom floor makes Sam wince, but he fights the urge to cover his ears. He needs Colby.
He slides down from the toilet, until he’s on his knees, grabbing his phone. His hands shake as he opens it, searching for Colby’s contact. Before he can call it, his vision goes white. His fingers grasp for the caller button, but he can’t hear anything anymore as he drops it to the cold ground, with a loud clattering sound. Sam’s head follows soon after, hitting the stone with a dull thud.