Haunted House - 9.8.2013 [Nate]

Molly Toombs

On Sunday of last week, Molly had noticed a moving van against the curb while out on her balcony watering her plants.  On her way downstairs to go to work, she learned that the pair of men who lived above her were moving out, getting their own separate places now that they could afford not to need rommates with whom to split rent.  She shook hands politely, wished them luck, and was on her way.  She didn't think about it much more, neighbors came and went after all.

On Wednesday night, Molly had come home in a bit of a haste, closing the door behind her around eleven o' clock at night.  She'd encountered a vampire, one that she trusted least out of the familiar faces within that group of beings (and trust her, it was upsetting to admit that she had a file of 'familiar faces' in the vampire community), and had fled home in a quickness to avoid getting pulled into conversation with him.  She was convinced there was something Bertram the Vampire wanted from her, and she had a feeling that it was going to be blackmail-laden indentured servitude.  Or, more to the point, she would be forced to provide services or knowledges in exchange for not being killed and hung up to dry.

She put herself through the shower and laid down to try and get some sleep.  She'd tried taking NyQuil that night in an effort to bypass nightmares.  All this did was help her be too drowsy to notice or hear the dragging sounds that came from an apartment upstairs that had been empty for half a week now.  She slept right through.

The next night when she heard the sounds, she checked the clock.  It was about ten at night, on a night off work, and she shrugged and assumed the roommates had neglectfully left some belongings behind and were coming back to retrieve them.

Friday night, the same thing, except this time she was getting off work from her swing shift and it was three in the morning.  The noises were heavy, but muffled.  It wasn't quite the same as furniture being dragged, and she noticed the sounds didn't seem to have any set direction.  If it was furniture and boxes being moved out, the dragging would all head toward the door.  What she listened to dragged toward the door, then toward a wall, then across the floor toward the back of the apartment before stopping.

Suspicious, but unwilling to go check on her own, Molly opted to go to bed and try and forget.
Unfortunately, ignoring weird things didn't make them go away anymore.  Not for Molly Toombs.  Saturday night she got back from work, and the noises were there to greet her the instant she finished turning the lock behind her.  Now they were louder, more persistent, and she hovered near the door toying with the thought of going to Tommy Lynch, of telling him about these weird happenings, and letting the brick wall of a vampire who apparently had some unexplained soft spot for her go investigate.  He's taken a bullet, she was confident of this now, so she was pretty sure that whatever might be happening upstairs he would be better equipped to face than she.

No, she would tell herself finally, and settle into her home for the night.  You've had enough mayhem brought into your world because of people without pulses.  There's no reason to outright invite one over on the weekend.  It would be nice to go a full week without siddling up beside a dead man.

So, instead, on Sunday morning Nate would get a text:

Can you come by tonight?  Weird shit happening upstairs and I'm honestly too freaked to check it out alone.


Nathan Marszalek

On Sunday morning Nate was asleep on the couch having spent the entirety of the previous day and most of the night covering a shooting in his precinct. His response was not immediate but Molly did not have to wait longer than a couple of hours before he sent back

No problem. Landlord know?

All the landlord would know is that the previous tenants had moved out and the only people with keys to the place were himself and the superintendent and the superintendent didn't live in that building, he lived in one of the other properties owned by the landlord, and there isn't any point involving a landlord in situations like this anyway. Molly has to like the fact that she gets along with the people who own and rent out rooms in the building. That they don't think she's crazy.

It's an old building and Nate has to hit a buzzer to let Molly know he's at the door even though she could probably hear his motorcycle as he parked the thing on the curb. He hits the buzzer. Whether she comes down to get him or hits a button to unlock the door to let him inside their paths converge eventually.

Nate wears motorcycle boots and loose jeans and a dark t-shirt underneath a leather jacket. Looks no more wan than he normally does.

"Hey," he says. A smile flicks across his lips and he glances skyward to indicate the floor where the trouble lies. "I didn't need to pack heat for this, right?"


Molly Toombs

Nate's question was answered simply via text:  Landlord doesn't need to think I'm crazy, especially not if there's a small chance I really am.  This would be followed by an address, and her advising that she's home all day so he can come by whenever he likes.  However, the sounds tend to wait until dark to really get going.

Her buzzer rang at about seven o' clock.  Sunset tended to start around 7:30pm these days, so they would have about an hour or so to kill before weird things would begin.  Molly didn't have to come down to get him, she instead was able to unlock the front door for him from the safety of her own home.  When he got to the door and knocked, Molly would answer promptly enough.

She was dressed comfortably for the sunday, in a pair of dark wash jeans and a plain heather gray T-shirt.  Her hair was pinned up off her neck, as it was quite warm outside (but her apartment had air conditioning because she could afford to live in an apartment that has central air, thank you), and her make-up was scarce at best-- light mascara and penciling to her eyebrows because, let's face it, red eyebrows and dark hair look odd together.

"I sure hope not," is the answer Molly gives, and she steps back to allow Nate inside.

The layout of the apartment is simple, as far as a front room goes.  The layout is open, longer than it is wide.  Her entrance gives way almost immediately to the kitchen, which consisted of appliances and counter space hugging the left side of a rectangular room (deeper than it is wide), with a kitchen counter to separate it from the path you would walk to reach the living room in the back.  Straight across from the kitchen were large windows and a door that walked out onto a balcony that overlooked the street.  She was on the fourth floor-- and the building was only five floors tall.  The apartment above her had no upstairs neighbors to speak of.

The place was clearly an old building remodeled not that long ago.  The floors were hardwood, a lot of the walls were exposed red brick as well.  Molly would offer a drink before taking them to hang out in a living room that was simple as anyone would expect, decorated with a full size couch and a loveseat, both in cream colored leather.  Molly would be drinking a glass of wine herself, regardless of what Nathan would've taken for a drink instead (milk, juice, water, beer, wine, and enough ingrediants for a gin and tonic but not much more).

"You would not believe the week I've had," Molly said once she'd settled into a corner of the full-sized couch, feet tucked underneath her.

And so she would explain:  She'd tell him the story of her Friday night (not two days ago, but last weekend).  About the encounter she had with the woman with the gun and her knife-happy girlfriend.  About the necromancer and (in very sparse detail because she still didn't like to think too much about it) the backroom that they found him in with all of the bodies and bones and fatalities.  She'd tell him about how the furniture in that room had come to life and attacked, but stopped when the necromancer was shot in the head.

She'd tell him how Flood the Vampire drove her home that night in his impressive beast of a classic car, and how she was conflicted by the familiarity she was forging with that undead man.

She'd also tell him about the noises, in more detail.  When they started, how they sound, that the apartment has been vacant since last Sunday and the sounds are reliable, and too late at night to be the neighbors coming back to get things.

Let it be known that the first story-- the one about Friday Night, required her to refil her wine glass.  When she'd settled back in, she was adding:

"Oh, and I ran into that Kragen Kingsmith on Wednesday.  He's a charmer in his own weird way."


Nathan Marszalek

Nate draped his jacket over a chair and accepted a beer and sat down on the couch with but not directly beside her. He did not push himself as far away as he could get but neither did he encroach upon her personal space. For having invited her out for coffee recently they did not get very far if they were hoping to feel each other out as potential friends.

Instead of asking each other where they're from and what they studied in school and what they hoped to accomplish with their lives they had talked about nocturnal attacks and blood-sucking pulseless men and now they're waiting to hear weird noises in a vacant apartment.

For a time Nate does look as if he cannot believe the week she's had. His eyes are dark against pale skin and almost-as-pale hair and they do not blink much as Molly tells him what's happened since they met for coffee.

"Ho-ly shit," he says when she gets to the part about the homicidal furniture. Kills his beer about the same time she kills her wine. Takes a second if she'd offered.

And onto Kragen Kingsmith.

"Lemme tell you something about that motherfucker: in the last seven years he's been flagged as an international person of interest in like, half-a-dozen explosions and something like five car bombings. He's also involved in a PMC... sorry, a private military company whose name may or may not be bullshit based on how little I could dig up on it. I think the guy's a mercenary or something."

He halves the second beer.

"Maybe he gave you his card in case you need to have somebody whacked."


Molly Toombs

Nathan's reaction to her story about Friday was accurate.  She looked grave when she shared this tale with him.  Her face was full and healthy, but somehow she looked gaunt in the cheeks and eyes when recalling the antiques shop.  It took her a little while to shake the gloom afterwards, but somewhere around the time that they switched to talking about Kragen she seemed back to normal again.  She was finishing her second glass of red wine, and he was halfway through his second beer by now.

The sun has been down for a little while now, and Molly had turned on a lamp in the corner of the living room as well as the bar lights that hung overtop the counter space in her apartment.  This made for dim, but comfortable lighting.  Doors to what must be the bedroom and bathroom were visible from the living room, but both were closed as was appropriate for having company over.  Molly didn't seem concerned with visiting behind either door at this time and simply kept her back to them, invested herself more in what Nate was telling her now about their mutual acquaintance.

"Really?"  Her eyebrows shot up, full of interest and, of all things, a touch of humor.  "Well, that makes what he was saying about 'burning and consuming' make more sense now.  Makes me wonder what the hell he's doing in Denver, of all places.  If he is all of those things, then I'd expect he'd be somewhere a little more... high profile in the world, you know?"


Nathan Marszalek

"Yeah, I don't know. Maybe he's on the lam."

Nate had come over with the intent to pinpoint the source of the strange noises in the apartment over Molly's. Throughout their time together though he hasn't looked up again since joining her in the corridor. If the entire night passed and no sound asserted itself it would likely be just as well.

Granted, if they kept drinking at the pace at which they're drinking the entire night, one of them is going to be too inebriated to get himself home on his motorcycle.

"Or he's got something to do with the tech or military centers out this way. I couldn't get a bead on what the company does or what he does for it. Dude just kind of pops his head up when there's trouble and then disappears again."


Molly Toombs

"Maybe I can try and help you look into it sometime, if you want?"  She paused, blushed a little under a layer of freckles that stood out more now that she wasn't wearing any sort of foundation makeup overtop.  "I mean, I'm not saying that I could do your job better for you or anything.  But I remember my research paper days."

She tapped her upper lip thoughtfully with one finger, then leaned forward and set her two-thirds emptied wine glass onto its coaster on the coffee table in front of the couch.  She spoke as she leaned and straightened both.  "Why are you looking into him that deeply anyway?  I mean, are you writing an article or are you really worried about why he's here?"

Clear blue eyes, not the typically anticipated green that red haired people tended to sport in storybooks and movies, studied Nathan's own doe brown for a moment before she leaned back more comfortably into the couch, stretched one arm along the couch arm behind her and the other along the back of the sofa to her right.

"Because I'm sure I could ask him.  He and I hit it off pretty well, and... Well, I think he had more he wanted to say to me.  Specifically concerning when that vampire showed up on Wednesday. I'm curious that he might be in the know, because of how quickly he boogied off from him just like I did.  I could get together with him, strike up conversation, and just kinda... steer it in this direction?"

She shrugged her shoulders, apparently willing to let the idea go straight away if Nate suggested she do so.  Her tone of voice was thoughtful, musing, entertaining a 'what if' without genuinely suggesting that she actually do it... yet, at least.

It was about eight thirty by this point, a halfway point between there and nine o' clock (but not quite at the 45 minute point).  Still no scraping sounds coming through the ceiling, but Molly scarce seemed to care.  In fact, she may have nearly forgotten about it, content as she was to just be cozy on the sofa having a conversation with someone for once.


Nathan Marszalek

Molly blushes and Nate has the manners not to tease her or let on that he notices. Her complexion being what it is she probably blushes more easily than he tans.

He gives a facial and physical shrug at the end of her questions and lets her continue on about being able to ask him. It's entirely possible Kragen has something to do with the pulseless pale motherfucker problem they've been having lately. That she offers to ply the other man for information is met with a contemplative expression but no ready acceptance.

"If he is in the know, and--"

Nothing but silence since sundown. Now comes the sound that frightened Molly when she heard it alone in the dark: the barking of a weight leaving its previous resting place and the friction of it sliding across the floor above their heads. No footsteps to guide the thing. It moves from where the kitchen in Molly's unit is to where the window would be upstairs and then it stops.

When Molly looks back at Nate his eyes are aimed straight up at the ceiling. Despite the light in the room his pupils dilate and she can see the visible rise and fall of his chest for the time it takes his pulse to calm itself.

He says, "What a cheerful, nonthreatening noise."

And drains his beer so when he stands up his hands are free.


Molly Toombs

They had been intent on continuing their conversation about Kragen.  If he was in the know, then...  But they don't get the chance to finish.  The sound that Molly had reported to her new friend Nate had started up.

Molly would consider Nate a friend at this point, although she would admit that the circumstances that formed the foundation on which their friendship was knit were abnormal ones.  Without the realization that vampires were real on both or either their sides, Molly would have tried to date Nathan, plain and simple.  She would've dressed up nice for him, been flirty and curvy and witty, and worked to win his affections.  She would've had a tumble in the sack with him after several dates, to determine if there was chemistry there to base a relationship on as well.  Who knows?  They might've gone steady, and taken the path that normal humans take in forging a relationship together in a predictable, average world.

But, instead, on what could have been considered a first date they had shared secret knowledge with one another.  Vampires are real.  Now they were rocks in one anothers harbors, steady heads in the same boat as one another, places to come back to share new knowledge, information, experiences, and to be assured that they weren't headed for a padded room when the other reacted with acceptance or experience on their own.

Nate would be where Molly went now when strange things happened that she couldn't handle on her own.  That was why he, and not the cop that she was very close friends with, was reached out to.  Her cop friend would tell her that ghosts aren't real and that he had a family to stay home with god damnit.

So it was Nate that she looked at from across the couch, who she watched staring intently at the ceiling above their heads.  Her pulse had quickened along with his, not so much because the sound was new and startled her anymore, but because she knew this was the part where they went upstairs together to check it out.

He stood, and she did as well.  When she rose up, though, it was to pat absently at her pant pockets and leave her hands settled flush with the bell-like curve of ample hips and to look mildly conflicted and questioning when she glanced across to Nathan once more.

"...Should I bring a knife or something, do you think?"


Nathan Marszalek

Given their ages and their backgrounds the two of them could very well have ended up following the trajectory of so many of their friends. They have yet to share aspects of their lives that would matter in making the decision to explore each other as potential romantic partners. He doesn't know how normal she considers her family to be and she doesn't know his own is fractured.

She knows he is a tall man and built solid if he does not push himself to be this way. When Nate stands up it is slow and purposeful. The sound of her palms against her hips has him turning away from the door to wait for her.

Should she bring a knife.
"Ehhh..."

Nate rubs the back of his head in thought but the debate is clear on his face. He leans towards no even before he convinces himself to fall that way.

"I did three tours overseas. If I can't handle whatever's making that noise, you'd better call the cops."


Molly Toombs

Her eyes round a little with this new information, and Molly rounds the couch to head to the entryway instead.

"Oh, did you now?  What branch were you in?"

See, this is the kind of normal talk that people getting to know each other have.  Molly was previously unaware of the fact that Nate had been in the military.  She didn't know he was as capable as he was telling her now.  She'd assumed he was your average journalist-- someone who spent a lot of time at a computer, behind a book, chasing stories.  These people, in her mind, didn't know how to throw a punch and couldn't run very far without spraining their ankles from the effort.

To know that he's been in active combat is actually a bit of a comfort for Molly.  She's quick about putting on flip-flops at the front door and grabs the keys to her apartment, pockets these instead of whatever weapon she was considering bringing.

She'd hold the door open, wait for him to pass through.  At the last second, while he was waiting in the hallway, she'd say: "Hold on!" and go back inside, rummage through a drawer in the kitchen before returning.

She had a flashlight in her hand that she tucked under one arm while locking her door.  After testing to be sure it locked successfully, she'd gesture up the hallway to the staircase he'd come up.  Onward.


Nathan Marszalek

No point telling her his MOS or the reason for his discharge when she's clearly impressed enough just knowing he was on the front lines. For all anyone knows looking at him Marszalek wasn't anything more impressive than a radio operator or a cook. It's easy enough to guess he was infantry when he's as tall as he is but infantry would imply he knows how to kill a man with his bare hands.

Maybe it's nice to talk about something other than vampires seeing as they're about to go upstairs into a unit that's supposed to be empty.

"The Corps," he says. "First Division, Seventh Regiment. I enlisted after high school in oh-five and got out about two years ago. Roadside bomb jacked up my back pretty bad."

He rattles all of this off while she's getting herself ready to go upstairs and then she tells him to hold on and goes back for a flashlight. The sight of it cracks a grin across Nate's face and he laughs.
"Right on," he says, "good call."

Up they go. He leads. Orientates himself based on where her unit is downstairs and approaches the door without hesitating.

"Should we knock, or...?"


Molly Toombs

She listened to what Nate had to share about his military service, but didn't have any questions to ask as a follow-up.  A bomb jacked up his back, so he was discharged (or so she assumed that was how things went).  She didn't think to ask what job he served while enlisted, nor did she bother to ask where he had been stationed-- it was easy enough to guess.  It probably had something to do with deserts.

They make it upstairs into a hallway that's identical to Molly's, except one story higher.  Here the ceilings were taller, though, because this was the final floor up.  The beams and ducts were visible here.  The building owner called it artistic, and it was passable as such but all of the residents knew that it was kept this way largely because he didn't want to pay to have it covered up.

Nathan stopped in front of the door, and Molly was perfectly happy to linger near his back and let him take the lead.  He asked if he should knock, and Molly shrugged.  "I'm afraid of who might answer, and that whatever's in there will try to hide."

So she reached around him and tested the knob instead.


Nathan Marszalek

And the knob is a willing participant: her fingers find it cool and unlocked. It gives when she twists it and Nate does not move from where he's planted himself before her. Enough room to reach to push the door open but he blocks the space she needs to go until he's decided it's good for them to go inside.

He doesn't click on the light. In a managed walkup situation like this the lights won't die unless the entire building loses power. Light from the world outside comes in through the naked windows and once they're inside Nate presses his back to the wall. Molly can see him look from corner to corner to ensure the kitchen is clear before they move forward. The smell of an open and defrosted refrigerator greets them. Beneath their feet the linoleum is clean and clear.

The living room is completely empty.

[manip + subt: lol who brought the medium into the haunted apartment]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 5, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )


Molly Toombs

The door was unlocked, and Molly nudged it open with her fingertips, pushing them from the knob once the latch clicked.  Nate stood solidly before her, positioned in front of the door just so that she could see around him but not have enough room to sneak past.

Not that she particularly wanted to anyways.

Inside the apartment was dark.  Nate didn't move to turn on the light using the switch by the door.  The layout of the apartment was quite similar to Molly's, so there was a long dark corridor lit only by the empty windows that lined the right side of the kitchen space.  There wasn't furniture left anywhere, and the fridge door was left open.  Everything seemed dark and still.

Molly was looking into the apartment, but her attention shifted to Nate as he stepped inside, but put his back immediately to the wall.  He looked about, then moved forward.  Molly moved after him.  She was sure to leave the door open.  It just made more sense, seemed safer that way, even if there was a chance a neighbor would poke their head in and give them hell for entering the empty apartment.  She paused near the doorway, contemplated the light switch by the wall, then assumed Nate had his reasons for not using it just yet.

So she followed along after him into the empty living room and hovered close to his elbow.  When he was still, she looked to his face for clues on what he thought they should do next, to see if he thought it was okay to even speak outloud just yet.  She might find something else there, though, because Nate was distracted by something in his own mind.

[Perception 3 + Empathy 2]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 7, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )


Nathan Marszalek

Molly happens to look over at him at the moment he's suppressing a flinch. One cannot help but startle when one hears a particularly loud noise. He tamps down the autonomic response all mammals exhibit when something startles them. A scream or a gunshot or the splattering of a body on concrete after it falls from a height.

But she doesn't hear a goddamned thing, and as she watches him that tamped down startle reaction turns into endurance. Like he's ignoring something unpleasant. His breathing is steady but only because he knows he's not alone and if he starts to hyperventilate she's going to notice.

This isn't the panic she'd seen at the coffeehouse in broad daylight when Nate encountered the truth about the man - the monster - that had attacked him in the park.

The layout is similar to her own apartment but the ceilings are higher and sound carries better here. The bathroom door is wide open and the bedroom door is ajar.

After a few seconds of standing still and wide-eyed in the dark Nate looks into the kitchen's corners a final time before moving into the living room. That was where they'd heard the dragging noise downstairs. A yellow rectangle slices through the kitchen but cannot beat back the darkness beyond it. The corners loom depthless around them.

"There's no one here," he says and if Molly thinks he's talking to someone other than her no one would blame her.

In the bathroom, the shower curtain rustles.


Molly Toombs

Nate was flinching like people do when something startles them and they don't want to jump.  He was tense, taut in the face and body alike, as though he were flinching, waiting, listening.  Molly strained her ears, but couldn't hear anything.  So she watched him more carefully, curiosity and suspicion mingling in her expression openly, so that when he finally does glance to her he'll realize that he didn't do nearly so good a job of holding back his reactions to whatever it was he was hearing as he'd hoped he might.

Her lips parted when he said no one was there, like she was going to plow right over his comment and ask him what that display was all about.  Headlights cut through the window and reflect on the kitchen wall for a moment, but do nothing to light the rest of the apartment.

Then, a rustling sound.  It came from the bathroom, and Molly jumped hard.  Her limbs jerked, skin twitched, and she immediately seized a hold of Nate's arm and hugged herself into his side.  You remember how it was as teenagers?  When a boy would take a girl to a haunted house in hopes that she would get scared and hold him tight?  This was the way that she was holding onto him, clamping herself to his side, her arm wrapped around his, securing them together, unwilling to be ripped apart from this anchor to life and reality.

She wasn't remotely ashamed or embarrassed of this reaction, and whispered gently near shoulder height, where her head hovered.

"I don't think that's true...."


Nathan Marszalek

As aggrieved as he is by something Molly cannot pick up on, Nate does not react to the noise in the bathroom with the same violence as she does. He flinches but he does not leap towards her. Not until he realizes she's clutching onto him for security does he remember oh shit, that's why she called him over here, she's been hearing weird noises for the last four nights and needs reassurance.

So he reaches across his body to clamp his hand on Molly's shoulder. His arm forms a blockade between her and the rest of the room and if she wants to stay huddled against his side he isn't going to bid her not to. But he slithers the arm she's claimed as her anchor out of her grasp so he can hug her against his side and have back his other arm.

"It's okay," he says in a low voice.

He steers her towards the wall and flicks on the light in the living room. Mounted overhead as it is it floods the space below and just before they blink a smear of something rust-red appears on the floor, gone from the window to the opposite side of the room. It either fades as Molly stares or flashes away when she blinks.

"It's okay," he says again and if she's still against him he tightens his arm around her. "I'm gonna go check the other rooms and then we're gonna leave."


Molly Toombs

This, truthfully, was nothing compared to Friday night.  She was bound not to discover a man who dappled in blood-magics here.  She probably wasn't going to discover that the bathroom had a tub full of blood with limbs dangling over it by razor wire, draining systematically into the plastic bath below.  She didn't think the sinks were going to rip from the walls and try to choke her with their pipes.

However, this was more terrifying, in that it was more suspenseful.  Molly had stumbled upon the horrors she saw last week full-tilt.  She didn't have time to get anxious or be afraid, all of that came later when she was a shivering mess of barely contained nerves and trauma in the passenger seat of a car that is likely one of its kind in the state of Colorado.

Here she's had four days worth of build-up and uncertainty.  All of that time gave her plenty opportunity to think what she might be hearing up here.  So when something made a sound that she wasn't expecting, she latched to her fellow man's side.  He seemed more weathered against this type of thing, though (oddly enough).  He was relatively calm as he slid his arm free from her grasp and wrapped it around her instead.  She accepted this gratefully, and grasped his T-shirt in her hand at his waist on the opposite side from her, as her arm was about his lower back now to help keep them close.

He turned on the light and Molly had to blink to adjust to the change.  She was sure for a moment that she saw a red smear-- blood?? -- covering the floor and wall, but it faded away as she stared at it longer.  Perhaps a figment of her imagination?  But she doubted it.

"Maybe not alone," she added when he said that he was going to check the other rooms.  She'd seen horror movies, and she knew the importance of safety in numbers from them and her own little moments of terror herself.  With her free hand she lifted the flashlight, but as though she was going to use it like a weapon rather than for its intended purpose, judging by the way she was gripping it.


Nathan Marszalek

"Okay."

Close as they are Molly can feel his heart beating quickly through the walls of his torso. Can feel the lean musculature of his core and the heat of his body and the rush of air through his lungs where her ear is pressed to his ribs. He does not speak in riddles of things she cannot understand and the only reason he had spoken to her in the first place, gone over to introduce himself with a glass of alcohol in each hand, was she had called out to him. She gave him an invitation.

In certain pieces of literature and folklore a vampire cannot enter another person's haven  without permission. They will stand at the threshold and claw at the doors and windows through the night or find a way to flush out the foes inside.

This isn't a work of literature. Nate is possibly the safest thing she could have invited into her life at this juncture and yet he is not so naïve as he had seemed at the coffeehouse last time. A part of his brain understands dark things the rest of the world won't acknowledge.

His arm is ironclad and warm around her shoulders. He guides Molly from the living room to the doors gone into the bathroom and the bedroom. He reaches out to flick on the light in the bathroom. Their reflections leap out at them in the mirror facing the doorway but nothing stands behind them and when Nate reaches in to haul back the curtain nothing reveals itself to them. No cause for the rattling of the rings on the rail. He flicks the light off again and when they step back the living room is empty and the bedroom doors are as they left them.

"It's okay," he says a third time. Nudges open the bedroom door with the tips of his fingers and then two things happen:

The apartment's front door slams shut.
The filament in the living room's lightbulb pops and darkness crashes down on them again.


Molly Toombs

After several seconds, Molly loosens her hold on Nate's side.  She doesn't part from him completely, and makes no move to shrug his arm from her shoulder.  But how she grasped his side became a looser thing, less strained.  The tension in the arm about his waist relaxed a little too.  They were moving, actively searching, and that was so much better than just standing still and waiting for things to happen to you.

In the bathroom she isn't startled by her own reflection, thankfully.  She held the flashlight tight, arm tense, ready to strike at whatever might be hiding behind the curtain.  But nothing was there.  She relaxed a little when she realized that too.

As they turned about and went to the bedroom, as Nate barely touched the door to push it open, there was a loud noise and everything went dark.  The light that had been filtering into the front of the apartment from the hallway was cut off, and the living room light had shattered as well.  Not much light came into the apartment from five stories up, as they were above all of the street lamps.

Molly was proud of herself, because she didn't scream.  However she did utter a quiet, breathless little: "Oh, god," and put her side flush to Nate's.  She licked at dry lips and her fingers trembled while she let go of him (but prayed he didn't let go of her shoulder) and turned the flashlight on.

The beam shook along with her hands when she cut it across the space of the living room behind them.


Nathan Marszalek

He may have been expecting Molly to shriek and start crying. They are both professionals and they both have backgrounds in stressful if not outright traumatic situations. Every day she goes to work she runs the risk of a patient or the loved one of a patient or a complete stranger or a jilted ex-employee or a stalker or someone attacking her while she is carrying out her duties. Every crime scene he steps foot on worsens his psychological scarring if it doesn't put him in danger of being hit by stray gunfire or a motorist isn't paying attention.

It is easier to maintain one's composure when one has a semblance of control over the situation. Right now Molly has no control and so far as she can tell Nate doesn't know what the hell is going on either, he's just protecting her.

This is a guy who holds open doors and pays for coffee when he's on a date with a woman. Ignore the fact that the date devolved into dissemination of information and they did not go home together. Ignore the fact that they could be on the couch still possibly sliding closer together after having consumed so many drinks in so little time. This ain't a date. She heard fucked-up shit in the apartment upstairs from her and wanted him to come with her to check it out.

Landlord would still think she was crazy if she told him what was going on but she does not shriek and start crying and Nate does not take his arm off of her shoulders and when the flashlight beam flicks on it moves across an empty goddamn room. No sign of the smear on the floor.

Beyond the reach of the flashlight's lance comes a creaking like rope straining from a force pulling down on it. Nate is walking towards the front door and taking her with him.

"We're leaving," he says and his tone is conciliatory like that's going to solve everything, "we're leaving."

None of the windows are open but the air is cooler now than when they first came in and it has nothing to do with their adrenaline levels ratcheting.


Molly Toombs

Her flashlight didn't yield anything.  That stain she'd thought she'd seen wasn't visible, and nothing darted at the corner of the light, skulking in the shadows and waiting to attack.  She couldn't see anything at all, and was still looking around, bouncing that light toward the bedroom door when the creaking noise started up.

Molly recognized it for what it was-- the strain of weight on rope, swinging casually in some imaginary breeze, or possibly from dying momentum.  Nate would know the moment she recognized the sound, because she shuddered heavily against him and held her breath.  Tears had started to prickle her eyes, but she did not sob, weep, or break down.

Nate announced that they were leaving.  When he repeated it, she began to understand that he might not be saying it for her sake as much as the sake of whatever it was that was in the apartment with them-- around them.

The air was colder, colder than it ought to be since this was a fifth floor apartment in the tail end of summer with no air conditioner running inside.  It should be sweltering in here, even if the air outside was growing chill and raindrops, fat and promising of more, were starting to splatter against the windows.  Nate started to walk them to the front door, and Molly did nothing to resist.  She did, however, keep her eyes behind them while Nate was looking forward, even if her flashlight was pointed toward the door for his benefit.  She was worried something would sneak up behind them.


Nathan Marszalek

Were not for the presence of the flashlight Nate would be groping his way through an unfamiliar layout with one arm out of commission for its responsibility to keeping Molly moving. They'd come up here to check out what was causing the dragging noise that started at the same time every night and they're no more enlightened for all that has happened since they stepped in the door.

If this is what the two young men who shared the space put up with every night it's no wonder they moved out so quickly. No obligation to tell new tenants what fate befell the people there before them as there is with potential homeowners.

Just as many myths surround things that haunt the land the people who live on it as exist myths of creatures that subsist on blood and cannot survive in the light: that they cannot harm a person, that they are anchored to the place where they died, that they are unaware of their state of being.

Nothing leaps up behind them. Nothing leaps up in front of them. When they reach the door Nate's palm hits it to make sure it is completely closed and when he turns and pulls the knob it gives. Light from the corridor greets them. None of the other units' doors are open and no one knows or cares that they were up here.

Someone is in the stairwell laughing but that person is heading down to the ground level. In another unit music plays.

He closes the door behind them and that is the end of that.


Molly Toombs

It's a merciful thing that Molly doesn't quite believe when they reach the front door and find it unlocked.  She was growing accustomed to everything being dangerous and slated for you to lose.  She expected the door would be locked and some ghoulish thing would drag itself on half-functioning limbs from the unchecked bedroom to meet them and corner them.  She expected to see it with gray skin and death bloat, with a noose about its neck and the rope trailing along on the floor behind it like one extra useless leg scraping the floor.

None of this happens, though, and that's perhaps why Molly looks so shocked to find herself out in the hallway with the apartment door closed behind her.

Nate will find the nurse white as a sheet in the yellow hallway light.  Her eyes are big and bright, glassy with tears that had recent trails that were cut quietly down her cheeks to tuck under her jaw.  She didn't reach up to wipe this away yet, perhaps because she didn't quite realize they were there.

Instead she uncertainly leaned away from Nate's side, no longer leaning into him, and clicked the flashlight back off.  Nate's arm would likely fall away from her now that they were out of the apartment, out in the hallway, with no harm having fallen upon either of them.  Molly stared at the door for another second, and with goosebumps still at her arms and the hair on her neck still standing on end, she looked up to the reporter.

"What did you see?"


Nathan Marszalek

Out in the corridor Nate doesn't appear to be in much better shape than Molly is in now that the door has closed behind them. His eyes are wide and unblinking though they do not shimmer with unshed water and what blood still graced his skin with its presence had leeched out of his face. If his hands shook they had the sense not to do so where Molly would see or feel.

With the question a shudder shoots up Nate's spine and he draws a deep breath like to drown his own fear in reason. Air leaves his nostrils and he takes a step back away from the door. Aims to draw her with him though he let her step away and does not reach for her again.

He shakes his head sharp and silent at the question of what he saw.


Molly Toombs

He shuddered when he, no doubt involuntarily, recalled whatever it was he had witnessed within that apartment.  What he had seen must have been different from what Molly had seen, because all that she had for evidence of what occurred was her other senses-- she thought she saw blood, but that hadn't stayed about.

This didn't give her any reason to doubt what she'd witnessed, though, for she and Nate had witnessed it together and that meant they couldn't be crazy.  They couldn't share the same psychosis together, after all, right?  Because she knew she'd felt the cold air, her arms were still adjusting to the warmth in the hallway that was so drastically different.  She knew she'd heard that curtain in the bathroom, and knew she'd heard the rope swinging with weight left to dangle from it.  The apartment door had closed when this building was not crafted to carry drafts strong enough for that to happen.

Molly was shaken up, but increasingly better now that she was outside the apartment.  The air felt better, more normal, and the crushing panic in her chest was ebbing away even as they moved back from the door.  Nate backed up, still focused toward the door, and did not watch where he was going.  He didn't reach for her again.

Molly did reach out, though, this time to pat a hand gently to his upper stomach, then touch lightly at his arm to urge him to turn around, to come with her toward the stairwell.  To get the fuck away from that door.

She would wait after he'd shaken his head so sharply and refused to answer.  She'd allow enough time and distance between them and that door, until somepoint in the stairwell, on the tiny landing between levels, where she spoke.  "You saw something different.  Heard, too, maybe?  I noticed when we were in there-- you reacting to things I wasn't hearing or seeing.  ....Will you be okay?"  No, she doesn't press for more details.  She just wants to know if he's going to be alright.


Nathan Marszalek

And he goes without great urging for having his back to that door does Nate no favors. Standing close and digesting what they witnessed in there gives neither of them a sense of safety for they cannot know that the door will not yawn open enough for a withered arm to slide through and grab them back in.

No sounds come from within now that they're out again. For all they know it was truly a shared psychosis. The term for such a thing is a folie à deux. It isn't beyond the realm of possibility for her to have sucked Nate into a delusion and for the delusion to have amplified.

They've both been through some shit lately and they can't tell anyone else about it. Looked at from the outside what they just witnessed could just as well be their imaginations breaking free from their constraints.

So Molly touches him and Nate moves back towards the stairwell with him.

"Yeah," he says and frowns like he can't fathom why Molly would ask him that. "Yeah, I'm fine."
That's all she gets out of him before they're back behind a closed door in a room with furniture in it, without the sounds of someone else's passing coming at them. Downstairs again they do not hear the bumping or the dragging. It may start up again hours later but compared to the unit upstairs Molly's is a goddamn fortress of solitude.

Nate could tell her everything, or he could tell her nothing. He hasn't decided yet.