Page 49 of Possessed By Shadows

“Let me climb down and get the camera,” Micah volunteered.

“You have bigger balls than me,” I grumbled.

“Are we comparing?”

“Do you feel anything?”

“Same thing since we entered the building? Ants. You saw something?”

“Eyes.” I was sure of it. It was hard to fake that weird light reflection eyes did. “An animal probably?”

Micah leaned down and searched the area again, slower. “I don’t see any movement, or signs of a nest. Could be raccoons. At least this high up, it’s unlikely to be gators. Snake eyes are usually harder to catch in the light.”

“Great, now I’m worried about snakes.”

Micah’s light paused on a giant spider web. “More worried about black widows myself. Or the recluse. Really don’t want to die rotting away from a spider bite.”

“Fucking A,” I cursed. “Did not need that in my head.”

“Living things are scarier than ghosts most days.”

“I hate you,” I grumbled at him. “Let me go get the camera. Can you hold both lights while I climb down?” The rain was pounding harder outside now, echoing on the roof. The constant splatter of it falling through somewhere, sounded like water down a pipe.

“Yeah,” he took my light and aimed them both around the opening until I found a spot to climb down. At least down was easier than up. Arm strength had never been an issue for me. I dangled for a minute, not far off the floor, just a couple feet really, but trying to gauge just how far it was. I dropped, landing a few feet from the camera.

“This hasn’t been here long,” I said as I picked it up and examined it. The battery was dead, but it was a new model, high end. Micah would know specifics. It wasn’t covered in dirt or wet. “Can you reach it?” I made sure the camera was still firmly attached to the tripod and held it up for him.

Micah set one of the lights beside him and reached for one of the legs, catching it and carefully lifting it. “This looks like something Lukas would have. Quality camera. No one would just leave it. And if someone found it, they’d steal it and pawn it.”

“Can you fit it in your backpack? And hand me the light, there’s a doorway here, maybe I can go looking?” What if Lukas had been hurt and was lying in here somewhere, unconscious? Fallen through the floor or impaled by a rotting board, my brain could think of a dozen possible horrors.

Micah held out my flashlight. “Catch, but don’t go far. We don’t know how stable the floors are.”

I caught the light he dropped and began examining the area closer. It was a big room. Maybe at one point a music room, as the remains of a piano were disintegrating on the ground near the far wall. At first it was a little hard to identify, because it was a pile of sawdust with things that looked like fingers in it. Keys, some wire, not much else. Very dystopian. The end of the world vibe sitting in my stomach like stone. I circled the room, finding a set up in the corner that looked like a sleeping bag. It looked new. Lukas’s?

“You find something?” Micah asked, his light directed my way from his crouched position above me.

“Sleeping bag.” Nothing else. No backpack, or light. I stood up, my gaze briefly passing a distant open doorway. Blinked and looked back. Was someone standing there? “Lukas?” I raised my light.

Something darted back from the doorway. There was no other way to describe it. Maybe the light was too far to penetrate the darkness because it looked all black. But one second it was there, the next it pulled back and I was up and racing after it.

“Alex!” Micah shouted.

I raced through the door. “Lukas?” My heart pounding with fear and worry. Was he there? Maybe he was out of it from not taking some medication he was supposed to? The hallway there was long and filled with holes in the floor, fallen boards and debris.

One section of the wall seemed to have fallen over, blocking part of the path closest to the stairs. I swung the light around, trying to find the shadow again, moving fast, and searching room by room. “Lukas?”

I climbed around the pile, squeezing through a narrow area of boards and crawling out the other side expecting to find an open area to the stairway. I was met with dark glowing eyes and a white face.