Safety Has A Tail and Horns

4

Bad.

That was the only way Shane could describe the energy of the place.

Bad.

Honestly, for him to be uncomfortable in a haunted place was something new. Something he didn't enjoy very much.

As the two of them stood in the woods behind the hospital, Shane couldn't help but fidget a little, looking around and nearly missing his cue to shake his head at "-are ghosts real?", something that would definitely have been noticed.

He pulled his denim jacket tighter around himself, fighting back a shiver. He was a demon, not Ryan. He shouldn't be scared of something that probably wasn't there. Definitely real, but probably not there.

The thing was, with the facts that Ryan was rattling off, it didn't sound to Shane like there would be anything even remotely demonic in this area, save for himself of course. Despite that, nerves twisted his stomach into knots, and he found himself unable to sit still.

"You okay, big guy?" Ryan asked, bumping Shane with his shoulder when the camera stopped rolling.

"M'fine. Just cold." A blatant lie, but not one Ryan would pick up. It was cold, thankfully, so he could use that excuse 'ore than once when needed if he seemed off.

"You could touch the sun, there's no way you're cold," Ryan laughed. "Besides, Mister Midwestern, you've been through enough snow that a little bit of nighttime cold shouldn't bug you."

"I just..am cold, Ryan," Shane said. "It happens."

"Whatever you say, big guy." Ryan didn't look convinced, but with TJ motioning for them to get moving so they could continue filming, he didn't exactly have the time for further questions.

Something flickered at the edge of Shane's vision, but was gone when he moved his head to confront it. That did nothing to ease his discomfort, no matter how many times he tried to chalk it up to his imagination.

Ghosts. He was fine with ghosts. The ones back at UW-Madison didn't even make him the slightest bit uneasy. This, though, was different.

Wasn't a ghost, maybe.

It was a little silly, but seeing Ryan armed with his water pistol full of holy water gave Shane a bit of comfort.

The woods were silent, save for the crunching of leaves and sticks under everyone's shoes. Shane sent a silent prayer to whoever he was supposed to send those to now that the footsteps would stop as soon as the crew did.

He looked up from the ground as Ryan went to sit down on a stump, which wouldn't have been anything unusual if there hadn't been a figure behind him.

"Ryan, wait-"

The figure's head snapped up at the sound of Shane's warning, took a long, scared look at the demon, then disappeared.

"What? What'd you see?" Ryan was asking, looking down and behind him.

"Nothing, Nothing," Shane breathed. "Just thought I saw a spider where you were about to sit. If it was there, it's gone now."

"O..kay? Thanks, man," Ryan said.

"We're here to kill ghouls, not spiders," Shane reminded him, putting a grin on his face for the camera.

"Right," Ryan replied with a grin to match. He sat, then turned to the camera to begin listing off facts about the hospital and the forest they were currently in.

It was a little odd that it was the forest and not the hospital itself that was haunted, but hearing about the bodies that were shuttled underneath the ground and burned in crematoriums around them gave the story a bit of sense.

Shane longed so badly to tell Ryan what he had seen. The figure had to have been a young man, probably mid-20s, looking very curiously at the equipment and at the stranger taking a seat in the woods the man haunted. Of course, that would prompt way too many questions for Shane to answer, and probably lead to Ryan cutting ties with Shane, finding a way to exorcise or kill him, or both.

Neither of those were risks Shane was willing to take. He knew how much Ryan loved Unsolved, and he was also pretty sure being exorcise and/or killed wouldn't exactly be pleasant, especially since he had traded his soul to get rid of Goldsworth.

Goldsworth. That was a name he hadn't thought about in a while. Shane wasn't complaining about that, the killer was unbearable. Having him possessing the body of Shane's best friend didn't exactly make Goldsworth a candidate for Shane's favorite person in the world, either.

He was just happy Goldsworth was gone.

Oh, what a shame it was that Goldsworth was, perhaps, a smaller threat than what laid ahead of them now.