Chapter 2 #2
Niillas allows Sander to pull him inside before he can do anything stupid.
Like rearranging Henrik’s silly vampire teeth with a punch to his smug face.
They push through the crowded hallway, past pirates and witches and what appears to be three different versions of Spider-Man.
The music is loud enough to make conversation difficult, which suits Niillas fine.
He’s not much for small talk at the best of times.
Jonas appears from the kitchen carrying a beer, dressed as what Niillas assumes is supposed to be a gladiator, but looks more like a very confused Roman soldier.
“Sander! Nice costume.” Jonas’ gaze flicks to Niillas. “And Vars actually showed up. I wasn’t sure you would.”
“Team-building,” Niillas says dryly.
“Right. Well, beer’s in the kitchen, stronger stuff’s on the terrace. Pool’s heated if anyone wants to swim, though it’s getting pretty cold.”
Cold? Niillas rolls his eyes. It’s above freezing, and Niillas still swims in the fjord every other morning. Spoiled rich boys.
But instead of calling Jonas out, Niillas decides to follow Sander to the kitchen.
He has a queasy feeling that he can’t quite shake off, and it’s more manageable when he’s near Sander.
So, Niillas grabs a beer and leans against the counter, content to observe, while Sander immediately gets pulled into conversation with some of the other team members.
It’s interesting watching Sander work his charm.
There’s something about him that draws people in, makes them laugh, makes them want to be around him.
But Niillas can see the calculation behind it, the way Sander adjusts his personality slightly for each person he talks to.
He can’t say it’s fake exactly, but it’s deliberate.
“He’s good at this,” someone says beside him. “Also cute.”
Niillas turns to find a girl he doesn’t recognize, but who vaguely resembles Jonas, dressed as a fairy with glittering wings.
“Excuse me?”
“Oh, hi, I’m Emma.”
She offers her hand to shake.
“Jonas’ sister,” Niillas takes a guess.
“Twin, actually.”
She grins at him.
“I had a spectacular crush on Sander when I was younger. He’s just easy to like, making everyone feel like they’re the most important person in the room. It’s a gift.”
“Also a little shallow, no?”
Emma laughs.
“Maybe. But also lovable.”
She’s not wrong. Even now, Sander has the full attention of four different people, and they’re all hanging on his every word. He throws his head back and laughs at something Henrik says, and the sound carries even over the music.
“You’re the new guy, right? From Rovaniemi?”
“Niillas,” he confirms.
“Jonas is scared you’ll put him through the boards. But also grateful that you’re playing on our team.”
“Hmm.”
They talk about hockey and then about coursework.
Emma is in Arctic Studies too, easy to talk to, and obviously happy to have found someone who isn’t too drunk yet for reasonable conversation.
But Niillas finds his attention drifting back to Sander.
Someone has handed him a drink, something clear in a shot glass, and he knocks it back without hesitation.
The liquid makes him grimace, but he grins through it, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
Irritation makes Niillas frown. It’s not a good idea to take drinks from people you barely know.
Acquaintances from uni. Friends of Jonas.
Doesn’t Sander have some basic sense of self-preservation?
The evening progresses in a blur of alcohol and increasingly loud music.
Niillas nurses his beer and watches the party evolve around him.
Someone starts a drinking game in the living room.
A group migrates to the heated pool, and Niillas ponders if he’s going to pull any of the guys out again when they hit their heads on the tiles due to increasingly risky jumps.
And through it all, he keeps tracking Sander like a predator following prey.
It’s unconscious at first, but as the evening wears on, he becomes more aware of it.
The way Sander’s laugh carries across the room.
The way he touches people when he talks to them, a hand on an arm, a pat on a shoulder.
The way the devil horns have gotten slightly askew, making him look more sexy, not less, by some miracle.
It’s fun even. Conversation is awful after Emma has moved to another girl Niillas recognizes from uni with an interested glint in her eyes.
Niillas should be bored out of his mind, but watching Sander is weirdly… satisfying.
It’s only half-past nine when Henrik shouts, ‘Ghost Stories’ from the living room.
“It’s Halloween! We need ghost stories!”
A cheer goes up, and people start gathering in the spacious living room, settling on couches, armchairs, and the floor.
Someone dims the lights, and Henrik starts igniting honest-to-god candles that reflect in the floor-to-ceiling windows looking out on the garden.
The soft light plays across the glass, making it look like moving water, and Niillas is reminded of liminal places and two-sided lakes.
Halloween might not hold any importance in these lands besides modern fancy, but Niillas can sense that the veil is thin tonight.
He finds a place to sit cross-legged on the floor near the back of the group, close enough to hear but far enough away to escape if things get too ridiculous. Sander sits down on the couch directly in his line of sight, beer in hand and cheeks flushed.
“Right,” Henrik says, settling into an armchair with his own drink. “Who wants to go first?”
“You called for ghost stories, you start,” Lars calls out.
Henrik grins, his plastic fangs catching the candlelight.
“Fine. But I’m telling you about the Stállu farm.”
A few people groan, others laugh, but coldness settles in Niillas’ stomach.
A stállu is a being not unlike a troll in Sámi folklore.
And he knows the stories about the creatures that hunt in the deep forests with teeth like razors and an appetite for human flesh. His grandma has told him all of them.
“Oh, come on,” Jonas says from his spot on the couch. “Don’t bore us with this bullshit.”
“But is it really bullshit?” Henrik leans forward, clearly enjoying himself. “My cousin works for the real estate company that’s been trying to sell the place for three years now. Nobody will buy it. You know why?”
“Because it’s a ruin in the middle of nowhere?” Sander says with an air of indifference, like he’s too manly to be scared.
“Because every family that’s tried to live there has left within a month.
Every. Single. One. The last family who tried came from Oslo.
A young couple with two small kids. They packed up in the middle of the night and never came back.
Left half their furniture behind, like in the fucking Conjuring. ”
“Probably because of mice and boredom,” Emma says.
But the atmosphere has changed into something uneasy and charged, and Henrik shakes his head like a disappointed teacher.
“Mice don’t leave claw marks on the walls, sweetie. Mice don’t make the kind of sounds they heard at night. There’s something out there, deep in the forest. Something that’s breathing outside the windows, scratching at the doors.”
The room has gone completely quiet; the party atmosphere has now dimmed along with the lights.
“The old folks know what it is,” Henrik continues, and Niillas prepares for the racism packed in a gaudy horror story. “They say something lives in those woods now, something that came down from the mountains when the logging started. Something hungry.”
“You’re being ridiculous,” Emma says loftily, but she has thrown an arm around the girl she’d been talking to as if she’s one second away from pulling her onto her lap.
“Am I? My cousin says there are scratches on the exterior walls, deep gouges in the wood, like something with claws like hunting knives was trying to get inside. He says that when they made their professional photographer take pictures, the claw marks wouldn’t show.”
“Photoshop,” Sander deadpans.
The urge to stop Henrik from poking at something better left alone is getting stronger, and Niillas has to fight to keep quiet.
“Where’s this place anyway?” Emma’s friend asks, now properly relocated on her lap.
“About forty minutes north of here. The farmhouse sits near a lake deep in the forest; the road leading there is a dead end.”
Sander has gone very still, his knuckles white on the beer bottle.
“Have you ever been there?”
Henrik grins, a shark sensing blood.
“Once. During the day, mind you. Even then, the place felt wrong. There’s a rusted gate and a long driveway that disappears into the trees. Spooky.”
Sander grins, slow and challenging.
“You’re talking such garbage.”
“Tell you what, Captain, since you’re so sure the story is bullshit, why don’t you spend the night there? Halloween night, alone in the haunted farmhouse. Prove to us all that our team captain isn’t afraid of some pesky ghost stories.”
All eyes turn to Sander, and Niillas’ whole body tenses, his every instinct screaming danger.
“That’s a stupid dare,” Jonas says quickly. “The place is probably structurally unsound, and—”
“Fine.” Sander’s voice cuts through Jonas’ protest. He sets down his beer and stands, swaying slightly. “I’ll do it alone if no one has the guts to join me.”
Henrik’s eyes sparkle with malicious glee, and Niillas makes a mental note to let him pay for this fuck up during their next training session.
“Trying to bring backup?” Henrik taunts, but even as he says it, Niillas realizes no one’s going to come.
His hockey mates show more sense than he would’ve given them credit for. All except one, that is.
Sander’s gaze sweeps across the room, lingering on faces that suddenly find their drinks very interesting.