7. LO #2
“Don’t disrespect my ghost like that,” I snap, and as Stevie whips her head in my direction, most likely ready to fight, I offer her a teasing smile. She backs down immediately.
Stevie turns to the twins. “Come on. Up and at ‘em.”
“I’m not going back in there. No fucking shot,” Sean protests. His twin nods in agreement.
“You guys are being—”
“It’s fine, I get it. I also spend as much time as I can avoiding this place. I can help instead of them,” I offer.
Stevie looks at me and then at the twins, warning in her face. But she lets it go and pushes open the front door.
As soon as I step inside, that awful, sinking feeling that swallows me whole every single time I open my door greets me.
“God, this place really does give me the creeps,” Andrew says, a visible shiver traveling over his body. He turns to me. “No offense.”
I shake his comment off. “None taken. I have the same experience every time I open the door.”
Stevie, a few steps ahead of us, turns into the living room and suddenly stops. “Jesus, dude.”
“What?” I ask, taking quicker strides to see what she’s seeing. The house might be haunted and the bane of my existence, but it’s also my house.
I stop next to Stevie and don’t even have to ask her what she’s looking at. It’s all laid out in front of us. The twins were right; things really were falling over the place. Equipment that I can only assume is expensive is on the floor, lights knocked over, papers all over the floor.
And it’s not just things from filming, it’s also my things that have been thrown everywhere. If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve assumed a terrible wind storm had blown through and then just as quickly disappeared.
I gasp and walk over to my books that had been carefully lining my floor-to-ceiling shelves just earlier today.
There weren’t as many down here as there were in my bedroom, but the ones down here were my favorite decorative items to show off and my favorite conversation pieces.
Most of them were signed copies or special editions of some kind.
“What the fuck?” I use my normal speaking volume, almost as if I’m talking to myself, but everyone in the room knows who I’m directing the question to.
I crouch down to pick up the books and put them back in their places. Stevie leans down beside me to help, surprising me. But I don’t make a comment about it because I can already tell Stevie is the kind of person who would get weird about me acknowledging a nice thing she’s doing.
“These are cool,” Stevie says as she looks at the books in her hands. We reach out for the same one and our hands brush. I jump, moving away before I can think too hard about how soft her skin is.
“Thanks. They’re meant to be more decorative than anything but apparently someone here doesn’t care about making sure the pages don’t get bent,” I say, making Stevie snort.
Our moment is interrupted by a voice of complete panic. “Guys, I think I want to get out of here. I have a really weird feeling—”
Just as Stevie turns, probably to tell Andrew to chill out, the lights flicker.
“Not this again,” Stevie groans.
Even though it’s the second time it’s happened since they got here, it feels different this time.
The flickers aren’t in a pattern —they’re sporadic, like we’re leading into a power surge.
After a few seconds, they cut out completely, leaving us in the dark.
There’s hardly any light at all coming through the windows now, too, so it’s as dark as I’ve ever seen the house.
My heart jumps into my throat, panic immediately setting in. I want to sprint out of the house, ready to leave it all behind. But with the lights having changed on us so suddenly, it’s taking time for my eyes to adjust.
Through the darkness, I can hear Andrew banging around to find a light switch. “The power is out,” he says. “Fuck, dude. What the fuck is going on?” He’s half-whimpering at this point, and I don’t blame him for it.
“You okay?” Stevie asks, her voice low in the dark room. I don’t dwell on how sexy it sounds or how much I like her voice when she’s not calling everyone around her an idiot.
“Yeah,” I lie, even though my palms are sweaty with genuine, blood-pumping fear.
I’ve never experienced anything like this before.
In all the time I’ve lived in this house, nothing has ever put me on edge this quickly.
Normally, the ghost keeps things pretty inoffensive but this is starting to feel genuinely scary.
“I’ll see if I can get the power back on. Stay here,” Stevie says. I hear her put the books down on the shelf nearby, the living room still too dark to make out more than a hint of the objects in the room.
Just as my heart rate is finally about to level out, music suddenly blasts from down the hall. The noise is so loud and jarring that I physically jump. My hands find Stevie’s arm in the dark, her muscles surprisingly toned to the touch.
It sounds like the ghost got to the record player I have in my room; it’s playing through Rumors by Fleetwood Mac from where I’d initially left it off. “Never Going Back Again” had just taken the place of “Dreams.”
“Oh my god,” I breathe. The music is so loud I can’t even hear my own voice.
“I’d never thought about this song as particularly scary until now,” Stevie says, practically yelling, and a laugh rockets out of me, propelled by the anxiety I’m experiencing.
“What the fuck is going on , dude?” Andrew shouts from across the room. My eyes have adjusted enough to see him running his hands through his hair in a panic.
“I’m going to figure it out. It’s fine. Everything is going to be totally fine,” Stevie offers, raising her voice over the music.
“Don’t go.” I surprise myself with the words, but I’m not embarrassed—right now, at least. I probably will be tomorrow, or tonight when I’m lying in bed and just about to fall asleep.
But the thought of being left here alone right now isn’t sitting well with me.
I want something—someone—sturdy to hang onto. To make me feel safe.
Stevie puts a supportive hand over mine, offering a squeeze. “Do you want to come? Which is worse—being left here alone or walking into the middle of it with me?”
I’ve never thought of myself as someone who’s particularly dependent, but nearly paralyzing fear has a way of making even the most independent women give in.
Or maybe that’s just me. And only because the opportunity is being offered by Stevie.
“I’ll go with you,” I say. Stevie steps closer to me and leans down to make sure she can hear me over the music that’s still blaring through the house.
I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re only a few minutes away from the police showing up from a noise complaint.
As she steps closer, a wave of her cologne finds its way to me, and I have to stop myself from going weak in the knees.
It turns out the only thing that might be stronger than fear is horniness.
I let go of her arm, and Stevie surprises me by finding my hand in the dark. Our palms are clammy but I don’t mind.
“So we don’t lose each other in the dark,” Stevie says.
“Right,” I reply as our fingers lace effortlessly together.
“We’ll be back in a second,” Stevie shouts. She fishes in her pocket and pulls out her phone, turning on the flashlight. In the split second I can see her phone, I’m greeted with her screensaver—a sweet photo of a black and white dog sitting on the floor in a patch of sun.
“Fuck this—I’m going outside,” Andrew shouts back. True to his word, I hear Andrew turn the knob to the front door and swing it open. Even after he closes the door, his voice carries through the windows: “There is some seriously fucked up shit going on in there.”
Stevie snorts. She holds her phone flashlight carefully to the ground ahead of us to make sure our walking path is clear. “Okay, ready?”
“I guess,” I say, as Lindsey Buckingham keeps singing out the rest of his song. I know the album well enough to know it’s about to switch over to “Don’t Stop,” which might be a little too upbeat for the situation at hand.
She gives my hand another supportive squeeze as we cut through the living room and head toward the front hallway. Instead of turning out the door like Andrew did, we head deeper into the house.
My house isn’t very large—decent by LA standards, but that isn’t saying much—but it’s never felt so big before.
I’m noticing every corner, every window, every place where something could jump out at us.
I’ve always been a little scared of my house, but right now, I’m really scared of whatever is inside.
As we turn down the hallway to my bedroom, the music gets even louder and more overwhelming. My nerves aren’t soothed by the sounds of what’s one of my favorite albums of all time.
Stevie keeps up pace ahead of me as I start dragging my feet, uninterested in going any further. I glance back into the darkness, weighing my options. I could run outside and leave Stevie to figure this out on her own if I really wanted to. I’m sure Stevie wouldn’t mind.
But that would require splitting up and I’ve seen enough Scooby-Doo—literally the only reference point I have on how to emotionally handle this—to know I’m probably better off sticking with someone than going anywhere alone.
My bedroom door is cracked, which opens up an even scarier possibility—maybe it’s not a ghost but a living human being. Maybe there has been a simpler, albeit much more frightening, answer to my question of what the hell was going on.
I take a deep breath, half closing my eyes like I’m watching a movie instead of facing all of this in real life. Stevie is still keeping a steady pace ahead of me, cautiously pushing open the door all the way and then stepping into my room.
We hover near the doorframe for a second, Stevie’s flashlight passing over different corners of the room. I hide behind her, gripping onto her arm.