CHAPTER 4
“Can we break into these sandwiches or what? I’m frickin’
starving.” Fred was perched on a creaking wooden stool he had dragged into the
room through which they had entered the building from the hallway. He eyed the
cooler in the corner like a puppy looking at a treat. “Just wait a sec,
everyone else will be here in a little bit,” Ann said. She leaned into the dark
hallway, her hands gripping the door frame. “Hey guys! If you don’t hurry up
I’m going to start farting on these sandwiches!” Liz stifled a giggle with a
snort and pretended to cough into her hand. Paul’s voice carried from the other
room, “Keep your pants on, sugar snacks! We’ll be there in a sec.” Fred
scrunched his face up at the sound, “You know, it’s weird, it sounds like he’s
really far away but he’s, like, right there.”
“Right where?” Paul said, leading Hannah and Sean into the
sparsely lit room. It was no different from any of the other rooms in the
building but for some reason he felt more at home here. He felt safer. “Oh, I
was just saying it sounded like you guys were really far away even though you
were just in the other room. Isn’t that weird?” “Yeah, actually that is weird.
I noticed it when we first split up. Once y’all had left the room it was like
you’d disappeared.” Paul squatted near the cooler and opened it to make sure
they had enough food for everyone. Seeing seven individually wrapped
sandwiches, he nodded and started handing them out. “I figure we might as well
eat now before we get entangled in another shoot.”He tossed a sandwich into Jennifer’s
lap and she stayed stock still. “Hey Jennifer, are you OK? I didn’t mean to
freak you out earlier. I was just bein’ a dick.” Jennifer looked at him
blankly. Sean stepped over to grab a sandwich from the cooler. “Right Paul, as
if you freaked anyone out with that blatant creepy pasta.”
Paul’s mouth dropped open. “How dare you? That really
happened. I swear to God.” “You don’t even believe in God,” Sean said through a
mouthful of turkey, lettuce, and bread. “Paul sat down on the bare concrete
floor and twisted the cap off of a bottle of water. “Fair enough: I swear on my
mother’s life that I wasn’t making that up. And anyway this isn’t about me, I
was seeing if Jennifer was OK.” Everyone turned from Paul to look at Jennifer,
who was still staring blankly at the wall behind Paul. Liz reached over to
touch her on the shoulder, saying, “… Jennifer?” She lightly touched Jennifer’s
shoulder and Jennifer flinched, recoiling from Liz’s hand. “Yeah, oh… Um, yeah
I’m fine,” she said, shaking her head, “I just think, I don’t know, something
kind of freaked me out earlier.” Ann and Hannah exchanged glances. “What
freaked you out?” asked Liz. “Well, I’ll start by asking this: Paul, was it
you?”
Paul swallowed a bite of sandwich and asked, “Was what me?”
“Paul, I’m not fucking around here. I’ll ask one last time: was it you?” Paul
raised his hands in a gesture of innocence. “Jennifer I swear I have no idea
what you’re talking about. I was with Hannah and Sean the whole shoot.” She
analyzed his face for a moment. “Jesus Christ. OK. Well,” she said, looking at Fred,
Liz, and Ann, “I didn’t want to tell you guys at the time because I assumed it
was Paul pulling a prank, but…” She looked at Paul again, this time with
desperation on her face. “I saw someone outside of the room we were using. Room
B4, right?” Fred nodded. “I saw him, or it, whatever, just… standing there in
the dark. I could only see their outline but I swear to God I saw someone
standing in the hallway looking at me.” “How could you tell they were looking
at you if it was so dark?” asked Fred. Jennifer shrugged, “I don’t know, I
could just tell. I knew it was looking at me. Watching me; watching us. I
looked away for a second, and it was gone. I’m really sorry I didn’t tell you
guys.”
No one moved for several moments after she finished
speaking. They looked at one another in wide eyed silence. Sean stepped carefully
away from the door and slid down the wall next to Paul. They looked at each
other in the wan light. “Paul, are you sure there’s no one here?” He opened his
mouth to answer, but before he could speak the light from the lantern flickered
once. Every head in the room spun to stare at their only light source as it
sputtered again before plunging the room into utter darkness.
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