“Brent! Stop with this fucking prank right fucking now. It is not funny!”
How did those fake ghost hunters make things seem real to people? The window was open, was it not? There was literally no window!
Thump! Thump!
The walls rumbled again.
Goosebumps broke out all over my body.
Oh, hell no.
“What did I tell you about Henry?” Brent tried his hand at the door, flinching back with a hiss. “Fuck! The doorknob is hot as shit.”
Trying to control my panic and sense of impending doom, I tried to orient myself to the room to figure out an escape route. The only other option was…
The wide open shaft to the bell itself.
Where one wrong move, and I would be the next victim of this fucking place.
Hell. No.
But what other choice was there?
“I’m climbing down onto the bell. Let’s go so we can get out of here. I don’t want to spend another second inside this place. Then, you can apologize for scaring the shit out of me later.” I checked out the space to the bell. No fake glass. With a sigh of relief, I muttered, “Stupid failed prank.”
“Fallon,” Brent warned. “I swear to you on Martha that I sure as shit didn’t fucking do this. Why the fuck would I?”
“I don’t know!” I grabbed one of the ropes, settling my ass on the ledge of the open space. “You like being a total fucking weirdo sometimes! I’m getting out of here. Are you coming or not?”
Slam!
The door threw itself open.
Brent dropped to the floor and–
Slid out backwards.
“Brent!” Hoisting myself out of the—honestly terrifying—space, I ran after him.
The door slammed shut again.
Fuck!
He was right—the doorknob burned. How was that even a thing? Ghosts weren’t real. This shit could not have been real.
My chest thumped, and I heard the rush of blood in my ears. If I was going to make it out of the hell that was Henry’s ghost adventure, I needed to calm the fuck down.
The floor vibrated beneath my feet.
“You shouldn’t have come here.”
“Shut the fuck up, ghosts,” I muttered back.
The only option left for me was to climb onto the bell. If the ropes didn’t also burn, that’s how I was going to get out—never to return. Henry could stay here or go to hell for all I cared.
Was it possible to curse a ghost to hell? Fuck, should I consult a priest for an exorcism now?
The drop down onto the bell didn’t look terribly too far. Just enough to crack my head open and bleed out all over the place. Or break my back.
Or get impaled.
And that was enough of mentally visualizing every way I could have died. My mission was to get out of this stupid place, never to return or waste a moment thinking about it ever again.
The ropes felt normal. I looped the loose one around my foot and lowered myself down. Inch by inch.
Definitely not thinking about dying—getting my brain splattered all over a giant metal bell should not have been an option tonight. Haunted by a ghost? Sure.
Not dead!
If Brent and I survived the night—no, when we survived the night, I was going to stuff myself with so much food. So much so that I would turn into bacon or something. Bacon sounded perfect.
Cool air and mist hit my face as I slowly dropped into the open space holding the bell. Just a little bit closer to the beam…
I clenched my entire body when the building shook, dust shooting out from the walls. The tower was having its own earthquake. That, or Henry was mad I disturbed him in his space, demanded he show himself on camera, and then had sex in front of him.
He kind of had a reason to be upset with me.
“Brent?” My voice echoed out into the chamber when my feet touched the wooden beam holding up the bell. “Are you out here anywhere? I’m sorry I made Henry mad, if that’s any consolation!”
Tapping came from below.
Don’t. Look. Down.
It was a near-straight fall onto concrete if I slipped. The fear wasn’t so fun anymore.
A gust of wind shot through the space, forcing me to grip onto my rope for dear life. When I made it out, I swore I’d never do anything this stupid again.
“You shouldn’t have come!” (I can’t wait to see what you do with this villain.)
The gravelly male voice rang out into the space, shaking the rope in my hand. It snapped tight, and I prayed no one—or thing—would cut it.
I’d be a goner, for sure.
An ice-cold breeze prickled at my skin. I kept a firm hold of the rope, backing across the beam holding up the bell. There was a ledge just over there, and I thought I could make it over carefully to get back to the stairs.
And then book it out of here, never to look back.
But something brushed over my hand. Like someone passing you on the sidewalk just close enough to make contact.
It made all the hair on the back of my neck stand up. “Brent! I’m not having fun anymore! Where are you?” The shivering in my body was too much.
I looked around, hoping to find him somewhere. If this were part of an elaborate scheme from Brent, he’d never live it down.
“Fuck,” he groaned from my left. “That hurt like a bitch.”
Brent stood up from the stairwell, rubbing his head. From where he stood, he was at least a floor below where he was dragged out of.
“Did you hit your head?” I tried to keep my voice quiet and calm, but it came out near frantic. “What happened?”
His mouth fell open when he turned around and looked down at me. “Are you on the bell? Are you planning to ring someone for help or die like Henry? Get over here!”
Standing on a ledge, with a decent drop, with only a single rope that could help me looked bad, I would admit. But I had to run somewhere instead of letting a ghost drag me to God only knows where!
“You got dragged out of the room, and the door wouldn’t open! Of course, I climbed down here.” Step by step, I slowly made my way to the ledge to fling myself to the safety of the stairwell.
“Be careful,” he whispered.
“No shit.” Just a few more steps… I reached out and realized my arms were too short to catch his hands over the ledge. I looked around for another spot to climb up.
Nothing better than where I already was.
Thunder and lightning began outside of the tower, shaking the hell out of us. I flattened myself like a pancake against the wall.
“This sucks ass,” I groaned.
Brent’s head appeared above me, looking down. “Can you swing over with the rope?”
My heart dropped. Swinging over the open death trap? I was going to die.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
The soft taps rang out as if someone were walking down the stairs. Just faint enough for me to think it was just a figment of my imagination.
“What is that?” I stared up at him, eyes wide.
“Get to the stairs. Over there.” He pointed to the opposite side, where the clearing was lower, but I’d still need to swing my way over to the ledge. “Hurry.”
I don’t know what entity was here with us, but I didn’t want to think about that until I cleared the ledge on the other side. As if whatever was there knew, the darkness around us seemed to close in.
We were suspended in the paranormal.
“Here goes nothing.” I secured myself to the rope again and climbed up to start swinging.
A low chuckle filled the space. PHIL Add a maniacal chuckle
“Come on. Get the momentum and jump! I’ll catch you.”
“If you drop me, I’ll let Henry have his way with you!”
Momentum picked up in my swings with each back and forth, but it felt like it was taking too long.
My feet barely reached the ledge with the last swing forward to the stairs, so I took the chance to unravel my feet to prepare for the jump.
“Ready?” I called out as I made the swing back.
Almost…
Almost…
I released the rope and hoped for the best.
“Oof!” Brent’s hands wrapped around me, and we tumbled backwards into the wall.
Rubbing my hip, I stumbled to my feet. “Ow! Come on, let’s go.”
The stairs flew by with each rushed step we took to get out of the tower the long way. I couldn’t look back—I didn’t want to see Henry following us outside.
Or to see him try to jump inside one of us to possess us.
“Do you believe me now?” Bren’t whispered.
We pushed on the door on the bottom floor, trying to shove it open. Why did it feel like it was made of lead? This sucked.
“No,” I grunted, shoving harder into the door.
It broke free, and I went sailing over the stoop and into the mud.
“Looks like old Henry took offense,” he called out.
I looked up into the moonlight to see a darkened figure in the lower window, warning me not to try them again. That was enough for me.
“Shut up and take me home. I need a shower now.”
—
—
A hot shower felt fantastic after the night I had. In my room, Brent laid out on the bed, relaxing after his unfortunate encounter with some stone steps. That had to hurt, prank or not.
“You looked cute covered in mud. It was all over your hair—kind of like those spa places with the mud baths.”
I rolled my eyes and fished through my drawers for warm pajamas. It was getting colder by the day on the east coast, and I needed all the warmth I could get after whatever the hell the bell tower was.
“Oh, you don’t need those.” Brent appeared behind me, tugging the towel from my body.
Bare bodied, I turned around to face him. “Excuse me. We just survived a prank gone wrong—I would like to lay down.”
He ran his fingers through my hair, tugging at the nape. “Then, let’s make a few more bad decisions.”
“Ugh, you’re insatiable.”
“Mhm,” he chuckled onto my neck, gently biting down.
“Ah!” The world went sideways before I was flopped onto the bed. “You’re nuts!”
“Who said I wasn’t?” Brent straddled me, trapping me to the bed. Warm hands trailed up my body, enjoying the feeling of my skin. He cupped my breasts and let a heavy breath escape his lips.
His cock was already hard and ready. Teasing me with it, he swiped up and down at my entrance. Just enough to make me want it that much more.
Our mouths connected and I wrapped my legs around him, pressing him into me. “Fuck, Brent.”
We hadn’t totally finished what we started. I planned to fix that.
“Such a needy fucking girl, aren’t you?” With the way his laugh rumbled from in his chest, I knew I was so in for it.
“Yes. Yes, I am.”
“Show me.”
“Make me.”
On my stomach, face in the pillow, a crisp smack rang out in my room. He rammed himself back into me. “Be a good girl and take it.”
Thunder and lightning were still going on outside, keeping the spirit of Halloween alive while I got railed with my ass in the air into the early morning.
I ignored any creepy feelings from outside, especially when I saw the shadow of a dead man at three in the morning.
Another thing to add to the bucket list, I thought.