They Know Me

SNEAKING OUT

After dinner and ice cream, my aunt suggested we stay up and talk. But suspecting it was code for her wanting to discuss my parents, I claimed to be tired and we both went up to our separate bedrooms. But there was also something else on my mind, something that their death had, in a way, driven me to do – a recklessness I might never escape, a self-punishment I felt I deserved.

I shut the door and went to the nightstand. I picked up my calendar and looked at the date I'd circled when my things had arrived, the one I'd reserved for the warehouse. "Tonight," I whispered. "Let's see if it is haunted."

I opened the small drawer and took out the flashlight and a recorder and went to place them on top of the dresser. I removed my house key from my pants' pocket and set it next to them, a prevention against being locked out, because it was a one in a million chance that Rhys would be up late and see me again. Once I had everything I'd need for my ghost hunt at the warehouse laid out, I went to lie down to take a nap, without changing clothes.

I shut my eyes, but I couldn't go to sleep. My imagination took my mind hostage, and thoughts churned with what I might find once I was in there. Ghosts, maybe even people who were up to no good, thinking they'd found the perfect place to go and do whatever they couldn't where everyone could see them – or, nothing but an empty shell of an old building.

Shifting restlessly, I glanced at my clock. Ten o'clock – it was time to go.

Pushing aside any last minute doubts, I got up and slipped on my sneakers. I went to the dresser and collected my house key, recorder, and the flashlight. Then, as quietly as I could, I opened my bedroom door. The house was dark and quiet. I stepped out and quietly closed it behind me. I crept down the stairwell to the front door and carefully unbolted it, went outside, and slowly turned the lock to cut down on the sound of it being set again. Feeling free, I went to the sidewalk, and with a fast look behind me, I hurried down my street and turned right.

Entering the dead end, I eyed Cortland Bridge warily as I took the center path to the warehouse. While my curiosity about the paranormal elements inside the old bridge hadn't lessened, I wouldn't be returning right away. Not because of the French guy's warning. It was because of the inexplicable happenings I'd encountered from before. Before I went back to see what exactly was inside the old covered bridge, I'd need more experience with the supernatural – which I could get at the warehouse ... if it really was haunted.

Not being much of a runner, it took a while to get there. When I finally arrived, I took a moment to catch my breath as I scrutinized the old, abandoned mammoth.

Neglected and left to rot, the huge building appeared to be decayed from the ground up. Patches of rust, spider webs and cobwebs dotted it everywhere ... and that was just on the outside. My bet was that it was equally wrecked, if not worse, on the inside, too.

Stopping myself from the burgeoning questions I was starting to have about being there, alone, I murmured, "I'm here for one thing – to conquer the unknown ... if the unknown doesn't conquer me first."

I turned on the flashlight. Feeling like a trespasser, I grasped the roughened doorknob and twisted it. There was a brief hesitation – it clicked and gave way with no more difficulty. Starting to pull the door open and go inside, I was startled by a soft French accent behind me. "It could be dangerous in there."

Feeling more irritated than threatened, I turned. "To know that, I'd have to go inside."

The French guy looked surprised. "Alone?"

"Unless you have any other suggestions, then, yes."

"I can come with you."

His offer was unexpected. "No. I don't know you or your name, and not that it's a shocker anymore, but it can't be some sort of coincidence that everywhere I go at night lately, I run into you. Explain that."