Sure enough, it wasn’t.
I closed the door anyway and found a bucket I could use. If I had to choose between discreetly finding a way to dispose of a bucket of my own urine and peeing my pants, I’d take the bucket.
I was in the middle of hiking up my skirt when I heard footsteps. Multiple pairs of footsteps.
3
Cara
I clapped a hand over my mouth and tried not to make a sound.
I wasn’t imagining it. Footsteps. Shifting rocks. Voices.
I was in a haunted mansion at one in the morning and I wasn’t alone. I distantly wondered if pepper spray worked on ghosts.
“Quiet,” a woman’s voice said. There was a strange, formal stiffness to her voice. Almost like an accent but not quite.
“I’ve been quiet long enough,” a man replied in a deep, resonating voice.
“Look at this,” another voice said. There was a pause, then the rattling sound of paint cans being moved. It sounded like they were rummaging through the pile of things from the shelf. “How long have we slept?”
“Too long,” replied the man with the deep voice. “Look.”
Another pause, then a slow, amazed laugh from the woman. From the direction of their voices, I thought they might be reading one of the informational plaques the tour agency had put up explaining the history of the house.
The woman spoke. “Looks like poor old Mercer is long dead.”
“This door wasn’t here before,” one of the men said.
“Do you smell that?” The woman asked.
“Smells like a human.”
I really wished I didn’t still have to pee. When the door opened, it took everything I had not to lose control of my bladder.
Two men and a woman were waiting in the darkened room. They were all dressed like something out of an old movie with layers of well-made, formal clothing. They were pale, lithe, beautiful people. The woman had black hair, eyes a startling shade of blue, and curved, full lips that somehow hinted at both innocence and an edge of something more dangerous.
The man on the left had dirty blond hair slicked back over a smooth forehead, eyes that twinkled with danger, and beautifully sculpted, sharp features.
The other man was broader with a square kind of perfection to him. He fixed dark eyes on me, then took a step closer. “Hello.”
He was the one with the resonating voice. “Hi,” I croaked.
“I’m Lucian Undergrove. This is my brother, Alaric, and my sister, Seraphine.”
“You were trapped behind that wall?” I asked. I could feel myself trying to slam together puzzle pieces that didn’t fit. The biggest, most confusing piece was how three very much alive people had just come out of a wall I knew had existed ever since I’d been working here. “Was there a… tunnel in there?”
The three siblings exchanged a quiet look, then Lucian nodded. “Something along those lines.”
The two in the back were looking at me in a way that made me uncomfortable. The woman, in particular, had an intensity in her eyes that I hadn’t seen since I accidentally showed up to prom in the same dress as one of the cheerleaders.
“I’m just going to take this bucket and go,” I said, lifting up the bucket and showing all of them, as if it explained everything.
Lucian put a hand on my arm. It was cold. It looked even whiter than I’d realized against my skin, too. “I’ll need you to forget you met us.”
A loud swallow clicked in my throat. “You got it. I was never here.”
“No,” he said, eyes taking on a heavy, oddly magnetic quality. “I need you to really forget.” He reached out and brushed a slender finger down my nose, then half-smiled at me, revealing a handsome little vertical dimple on one side. “It’s a shame, though. I think I would have enjoyed getting to know you.”
I tried to say something, but it felt like I had suddenly become full-blown, can’t-even-talk-properly drunk. Some kind of slurred sound came out of my mouth, and then the inside of my head was spinning.
4
Cara
I had a cup of coffee in my hands as I sat at the breakfast table back home. Four tall basketball players surrounded me with varying levels of consternation on their faces.
Zack folded his arms. “So, you’re really not going to tell us who he was?”
“I already told you I don’t remember anything.” It was mostly true, at least. I remembered trying to find a key for a bathroom. And I remembered falling from the shelves. I assumed I must’ve hit my head somehow, but that admittedly didn’t explain why my head didn’t hurt. It also didn’t explain how or why some mysterious trio of strangers had apparently dropped me off last night.
“The girl was thick, dude. Like,” he grinned stupidly. “So thick.” Mooney said.
It had taken me a while to learn to keep track of my four oversized roommates when I moved in last year. But I had it down now. Zack was the walking science experiment who existed primarily on expired food. Also, the shoulder length-curly brown hair was his thing.
Niles was the tallest of the group with the shaved head and an unhealthy obsession with cleanliness. Unfortunately, instead of using his powers to keep our place neat, he just avoided the kitchen entirely and kept his own room clean.
Mooney was the muscular one who had a new girlfriend every week. He had the whole short on the sides long on top style and a toothy smile full of white, orderly teeth. He could charm the pants off women, but only if he did it before they got to really know him.
Last but not least was Parker, who had a scraggly, patchy beard and had never met a conspiracy theory he didn’t love.
Together, they were like my mostly incapable team of personal super heroes.
Zack was nodding his head as he ate something out of a Tupperware with a fork. Judging by the smell, it was long gone. “The vibe was really off, though. Did you see the look in their eyes? Creepy, if you ask me.”
“But you’d still smash the girl, right?” Mooney said, tilting his head and raising his eyebrows.
Zack made a pfft sound and laughed. “I mean, obviously. Just saying it was weird.”
Parker ran his fingers down his face, seeking out a little patch of his beard thick enough to tug at. “I don’t know. From the way you guys described them? I’m thinking something’s up.”
Niles eyed what Zack was eating, then shuffled to the other side of the room, shaking his head. “You always think something is ‘up,’ Parker.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Parker said. “But did you hear about the Mercer house last night? A tour guide showed up this morning and they found a demolished wall. And they aren’t saying what they found inside, but the girl they interviewed looked completely sketched out. Super suspicious.”
“Wait,” Zack said. Without looking, he tossed his Tupperware toward the sink. It bounced off the countertop and clattered to the tiles out of view.
“Kobe!” Mooney said, laughing.
“No,” Zack said, waving his finger around as he tried to grasp at some mental straw. “The Mercer House? That’s where you work, right, Cara?”