Flashfire

Ch17

It was dark when Caleb opened his eyes. He turned his head on his pillow to the tiny amount of light leaking through the blinds. Then he rolled over and stood, adjusting his boxers before he pulled the cord and looked out the window. Admittedly it was reckless instead of pulling two blinds apart to peek out at the street, what he had just done was much more conspicuous.

He immediately regretted it, as a dark car that was stopped across the road in front of the Liquor and Tobacco store turned on its dome lights. The faint glow came through the front in the dead of night. Caleb pulled on the string so hard the blinds swung and clacked on the baseboard below the window. He breathed heavy, frozen as his mind went back and forth immediately on what to do.

He should get clothes on and walk right down there to demand what they were doing. Caleb slid on a pair of basketball shorts and opened the door slowly, closing it so that it didn't make a sound as he stared at the wall in front of him. He wasn't sure why he did that; the car was outside, it didn't matter how quiet or not quiet he was being. Caleb crept down the short hallway and stairs, without fail creaking on the bottom step. He set his foot down slowly, a cold stone in his chest as his eyes locked on the door of the bar.

As if to prove a point against this vague, nameless well of fear, Caleb quickly approached the door and wrenched on the handle, but the door didn't open. In fact, Caleb hadn't pushed the knob down at all. He stayed there with his fingers locked around the slender, curved metal, breathing into the solid surface that protected him from the outside. The peephole was an inch above his face, but he didn't look into it.

Caleb was gripped with the conviction that if he opened that door, something absolutely horrifying would be there on the other side. His heart jettisoned through his chest. Caleb ran up the stairs and through the hall, then slammed the door to his apartment. He locked it and stood against it, arms held out on either side, close to hyperventilation. After a moments hesitation he ran back into his bedroom, eyes blindly sweeping the bedroom.

What the hell is out there!

"Liam?" he whispered.

Was Liam in the room right then? Caleb was afraid to turn on the light, afraid to do anything else that would give his location away to anything that was waiting for him outside, even if they already knew where he was. He whimpered, wishing he had a gun.

Two hands passed through his arms. They never made contact but had suddenly appeared so bright before Caleb as he threw a punch and shouted. Heat coursed through his fists as they went through the spirit.

"Woah Caleb, it's me!" Liam said.

In an instant Liam had materialized, glowing softly yellow and focusing Caleb's attention who had been flailing a moment before.

"Oh," was all Caleb could say.

His face burned, feeling a little foolish.

"I'm back! Yep, you keep dragging me back down with you, my little crab," Liam said.

Caleb blinked. "What?"

Liam shrugged. "You know, crabs in a bucket. I try to escape from what happened, you pull me back down because you think you need closure. I stay around because you're trying."

"What's that supposed to mean, Liam?" Caleb glared at his incorporeal form. Did he really just make this about him? "You know, maybe we shouldn't do this at all if you're going to be so mean-spirited."

Hah.

"That wasn't a joke," Caleb snapped.

"It wasn't supposed to be." Liam grinned.