Afterlife (A7X)

Chapter 2: Reading Up

~~~~CHAPTER 2~~~~

Reading Up~~~~

Saturday rolled around and we were all at Matt's house in his room, Matt at his desk and the rest of us gathered around. We were looking through some of the articles on this supposed haunted house, and of course, Jimmy'd already looked through it all a million times.

"So whatcha guys think?" Jimmy asked, looking around at all of us before he rested his gaze on me.

I glanced at him but then went back to looking over Matt's shoulder as he scrolled down the page.

"Well by the sounds of it, this place could well be haunted," Matt said with a frown, his focus on the article on the screen as I heard someone moving around in the house; it was probably his sister. "Seeing as the whole family was murdered in the barn and then he killed himself in the living room..."

Brian nudged me in the side, catching my attention. He signalled for me to follow him out of the room, to which I happily did. Brian closed the door when we were out in the hallway and looked to me.

"You alright?" he asked quietly, not wanting to be heard by the others inside. "Hell, you look like you've already seen a ghost. You've gone completely white man."

It was true. I was already freaked out by this whole thing. The further we delved into this, the worse it was gonna get for me and the further we'd have to go to get outta it when something went wrong. I said when, as I was almost one-hundred percent sure that something bad would come out of this.

"I'm fine," I lied, Brian's expression saying that he could see straight through my lie. "Just gotta get my shit together."

Brian sighed and looked at me sympathetically.

"Zacky, you really shouldn't do this," he said with a slight bit of concern as I looked down and put my hands in my pockets. "I can already see how freaked out you are and we've just been looking into it. We haven't even left Matt's bedroom for Christ sake and you're already as white as a damn sheet. I really think you should sit this one out."

"I can't do that Brian," I said, looking at him. "I've said no for the past three weeks and Jimmy's still hooked on the idea of it. He's not gonna stop 'til I agree, so I may as well just tag along with you guys. I'd be happy to tag along and just stay outside while you guys scan the inside. I just can't keep letting you all down like this, 'cause I can see how much this means to Jimmy at the moment."

Brian sighed and ran a hand through his already messy black hair; he'd been complaining about it for a month or so and was thinking maybe he should cut it shorter but he hadn't fully dedicated to the idea of it just yet due to one reason or another; the main one being that he knew Matt's sister Amy would probably get mad at him for it.

Brian looked at me as he thought and I just stood there, awaiting his answer.

"Alright," he said after a bit of a pause. "If you wanna tag along, I won't stop you, but make sure you know whatcha doin', ok? As soon as you start freaking out on us, let me know and we'll head off. Sound fair?"

I nodded and Brian nodded in return, but still looked unsure about my decision. He opened the door to Matt's room and went back in, me in tow. I closed the door a slight bit and trekked back over to where everyone was still crowded around to see the screen of Matt's computer.

Matt glanced at me as I took back my position, but he didn't say anything. He turned around and all of us took a step back to give him a bit of room as he spoke.

"Alright guys," he said, looking around at the four of us in front of him. "By the looks of it, we might have a haunted house just outside of town."