Sam and Colby: The House

27

I hopped out of the car, my checkered Vans scuffing against the pavement of the house of horrors' driveway.

"Thanks for buying lunch, Mom," Corey said, giving me a fist bump.

"Of course," I said. It was early afternoon. We'd taken a break from looking around the house to go get some food.

"Hour three of looking for the hidden attic, here we come," sighed Sam as we made our way inside. We'd already searched just about everywhere imaginable for it, to the point where we wanted to give up, but Sam and I weren't going to leave without finding that damn attic. We'd even gone out and bought a stud finder to try and find any iron hinges that might be hidden in the ceiling to lead up to the attic, but we'd had no luck. The hinges were probably made out of a different type of metal.

We made our way back upstairs and spread out once again, craning our necks to look up at the ceiling and try to spot even the slightest of abnormalities. We investigated every chip, divot, and stain we saw, but had no luck.

"Wait, Nessa," Sam said, waving me over to stand outside of Ed's mom's room. "Okay, first of all, what was his mom's name?"

"Uhh," I said. I looked down at the notebook in my hands and flipped through the several pages I'd been taking notes on. "Augusta."

"Okay. Well, I'd say we've pretty much picked apart this entire ceiling up here and we haven't found shit. What if it's in Augusta's room?" he asked.

"I'd thought about that, but Matt said we can't go in there, didn't he?" I asked.

"Yes, but Matt also said he really really hoped we would be able to find that attic," said Sam.

"So if we go in and don't touch anything, he won't know if we looked around in there. And if we do have to make a mess to get up to the attic, then he won't be too mad since we found it?" I concluded.

"I think that's some pretty sound logic, no?" Sam said with a shrug.

"Okay, sure," I said. Sam carefully unstuck the bottom two strips of caution tape from the doorframe and ducked under the remaining two to go inside.

"Okay, this room actually does smell like old people," Sam said, wrinkling his nose. I walked in after him and inhaled.

"Ew. It smells like a bar of soap and water damaged rotting wood," I said, looking around.

"That was very specific but very accurate," Sam said with a laugh. We spread out around the room. Augusta's room was the master bedroom, and a pretty big one at that.

"Hey, did Matt say we could come in here?" Colby asked from behind me. I spun around to see him ducking under the tape into the room.

"No, but he did say he'd be over the moon if we found the attic," Sam said.

"Ahh, gotcha," Colby said. "It smells like—,"

"Old people! It smells like old people!" Jake exclaimed, coming in after Colby with Corey trailing behind him.

"Wow, for once you're actually right about that," Corey said.

"It sort of smells like rotting wood. Which is commonly caused by internal water damage," I said.

"You mean like that water stain on the ceiling up there?" Jake asked, pointing directly above the door. I hadn't thought to look two inches in front of the door frame, but sure enough, there was a small puddle shaped stain on the white ceiling, tinged a light brown.

"Exactly like that, yes," I said.

"Nice one, brother," Colby said.

"Could that be it?" asked Corey.

"It could, but the only issue here is that we'd have to break through the ceiling to find out and if we're wrong then Matt wouldn't be too happy with us," said Sam.

"What if you call him and ask?" suggested Corey.

"Hm. Didn't think of that," Sam said.

"Jeez, we're slacking with the intelligence today," I said to Sam.

"No kidding," Sam laughed. "I'm going to step out and call him. I'll be right back." Sam left the room and we all heard his footsteps retreating down the stairs.

"How would we even get into the ceiling?" asked Colby.

"Oh my god, can we please just hack into it with a sledgehammer? I've always wanted to use a sledgehammer," Jake said excitedly.

"How the fuck would you use a sledgehammer on a ceiling? Isn't it too heavy? Plus you have to plug it in," said Corey.

"That's a jackhammer, not a sledgehammer," I said.

"Oh. Right," said Corey.

"Hey, what is this ceiling made of anyway? It's weirdly smooth," Colby said, reaching up to brush his fingertips against it. I looked up at it. Colby was right, it didn't have the texture of a normal ceiling or wall. I pulled out my phone and turned on its flashlight, then pointed it up at the ceiling. It had a shiny coat over it, the light reflecting back.

"It's like a vinyl sheet of something. But it'd have to be pretty thin to cover an entire ceiling like this... oh! Contact paper!" I said.

"Contact paper?" asked Jake.

"Yeah, you know. Those rolls of paper that you can peel the back off of and stick to stuff. It's usually used for drawer liners, but it comes in all sorts of colors and patterns and stuff. Is it super smooth?" I asked, too short to reach the ceiling. "And does it feel like it has some sort of waxy overcoat that hasn't been mattified?"

"Jesus, babe. I don't know. Here," Colby said, handing his camera to Corey. He squatted down a little bit and lifted me up by my waist, high enough for me to reach the ceiling. I ran my fingertips against it and pushed a little bit on the water stain. Sure enough, the stain felt sort of flimsy and soggy like paper would if it got wet.

"Okay, you can put me down," I said. Colby set me down, leaving little white marks on my skin from where his rings had been pressing into my sides.

"So?" Corey asked.

"Yeah, it's definitely contact paper. Which means there's an original ceiling under it that we aren't seeing," I said.

"Hey, guys," Sam said, ducking back into the room.

"Yeah? What'd he say?" asked Colby.

"He said if we inflict any damage and don't find it, then we can just leave him some money to repair it. But if we do find it, then we're in the clear and he won't mind how messed up the room gets," said Sam.

"Oh, fuck yes," I said.

"But where do we start?" asked Sam.

"In the corners," I replied.

a/n: i just wanna let y'all know that i promise i am taking care of myself lol. even if i wasn't posting on wattpad, i'd still stay up all night writing. anyway, thanks for all the interactions on this story. love you guys!