The house that had looked so unassuming from the outside had definitely been deceiving - the inside of Luke and Liam’s house was entirely in shades of black, white, and gray, giving the house a strange old movie vibe. I had to admit, though, that it matched their personality - stylish and classic while still having a bit of an edge. But I couldn’t help but smile at the fact that they incidentally had more black in their house than I did.
Caitlin led me up to the room that she had decided would be mine. She told me that she picked it because it was the farthest room from hers and “she didn’t want to be woken up by any more screaming,” but honestly, it felt like the room was designed with me in mind. There was still plenty of black and white throughout the room, but unlike the shared areas, there were some splashes of blue and red throughout the room, including one large built-in bookshelf with a multitude of different colored spines. Aside from the bed (which looked nearly alarmingly plush, considering how little sleep I had gotten the night before), there were only two main sets of furniture. There was a chest of drawers that were black and white on one side of the room, and on the other side of the room, there was a large computer station.
I set my bag down on top of the chest of drawers and pulled one open - all empty. At least that would make it easy if I did end up staying for a while. I had walked over to look at the computer station, just because it was the only other thing in the room, when I heard a light shuffling noise at the door. I turned around quickly, not quite sure what to expect - after these last couple of days, there wasn’t a lot that could surprise me anymore.
Liam stood, arms crossed and leaning on the side of the doorframe, looking at me with an expression I couldn’t quite understand. He looked like he had just gotten out of the shower, as his characteristically floppy hair was still weighed down, and he was in just a pair of plaid, flannel pants. “Sorry about having to stick you in the room with my editing station,” he said, nodding his head toward the computer setup. “Caitlin was really freaked out about the whole screaming thing.”
“I think we all were,” I said, turning to face him. “It’s not every day that someone wakes you up with a scream.”
Whatever serious expression had taken hold of Liam’s face momentarily lifted as he gave a slight half-smile. “Clearly you haven’t spent much time around my family.”
I cocked an eyebrow at him. “You had a lot people screaming in the middle of the night when you were growing up?”
He chuckled quietly. “It’s one of the fun perks of growing up in a large family. But I was gonna say, if you feel like using my computer, you can. You can even watch the newest video if you want - just please, try not to rearrange the clips, because it’ll be a pain in the ass to get them back again.”
I nodded appreciatively. “Something tells me that you didn’t rush here to tell me about computer access, though.”
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He shrugged. “I didn’t, but it seemed equally important. And a hell of a lot easier.” He lowered his voice for the last part, so low that I almost couldn’t hear him from where he stood. “Can I come in?”
“Yes?” I asked, worried. I’d only been here for a couple of days, I thought - there was no way that I could have already messed up so badly that he’d need to talk to me in private. But he didn’t look mad, so maybe I was just catastrophizing.
Liam nodded his thanks and walked in, closing the door behind him. He silently crossed the room and sat in the computer chair, so I sat on the bed to be on a more equal footing to him. “I wanted to talk about Luke.”
I couldn’t help but give a tiny sigh of relief. He stopped talking and looked at me curiously. I could feel the blood rushing to my cheeks, but I tried to ignore it. “Go on,” I prompted.
“Sure…” he started slowly, raising an eyebrow at me, but then he shook his head slowly, clearly deciding to ignore it. “I’m worried that Luke is still possessed, and I’m not sure it’s a ghost.”
I nodded slowly, processing his words before I responded. It was clear that he’d given this a lot of thought before he came to talk to me, and maybe that’s why he had seemed quieter than normal on the flight. But it didn’t make any sense. Sure, I hadn’t actually seen a spirit attach itself to the Boo Buddy, but what else could that light have been? I decided to start with what felt like the easiest question. “What makes you think Luke is still possessed?”
“See, that’s the thing,” he said, leaning forward in his chair and clasping his hands in front of him. He looked like he was closer to prayer than an explanation. “Since you haven’t seen any possessed people before, you might not know about any of this, and I don’t know if any of the other possessions that I’ve seen have been actual possessions, so maybe I’m just judging this based on nothing at all. But whenever other people have been possessed, there’s something about their personality that drastically shifts. Usually, it’s super noticeable - if it’s in a video, it’s blatant enough that our viewers can point out the exact time that it happens. But this time, it was weird because I don’t even know when he first got possessed. I was thinking, maybe it happened at the Peters Building, but honestly, there haven’t been any major changes.”
“It wouldn’t have to specifically be at a famously haunted location,” I reminded him. “Honestly, if a possession were to happen, it would make more sense if it happened in connection to the death of a person close to him, like it does with object possession.”
“And nobody around him has died recently, either,” he said. “He might have had a grandparent die in the past or something, but not anytime recently that I know of, and not anyone he was particularly close to. But anyway, then I was thinking, he has been a bit different lately. He’s been way less outgoing recently - he used to be nearly as talkative than I am, but when I thought about it, I realized that, in a lot of our conversations with newer people, I’ve been the one doing most of the talking. Even with this,” he said, gesturing between the two of us, “I know Luke hasn’t blatantly ignored you or anything, but I haven’t seen him going out of his way to chat, either.”
He was right - while he’d been friendly, I wouldn’t exactly describe Luke as extroverted. Or, at least, not nearly as much as Liam. “And he wasn’t always like that?” I asked.
“No!” he said with a light laugh. “He used to be the one to arrange all of the trips for us, back before we hired Caitlin. He loved talking to the owners and getting the history. So, I was trying to think of when that all changed. Obviously, it changed a little bit after we hired Caitlin, but for a while, he was still as chatty as ever. And I don’t think there was ever a drastic switch, but he slowly started to get less talkative, and I think it started happening after we did a ghost hunt at the Graham House. Did you ever see that video?”
I shook my head. “I hate to break it to you, but I didn’t religiously watch your videos.”
He smiled again, which made me feel a weird sensation in my chest. It must have just been the proximity. “Then, you’ve got your homework cut out for you.” He gestured with his thumb to the computer behind him. “I can grab Luke’s computer chair from the other room. Want to watch?”