Guilty Conscience

Chapter 2

It had been about a month since that little incident at the cemetery. Once they were alone at his house, Pete had kind of lost it on Patrick. Demanding to know how Patrick had ended up off somewhere with Mikey & without even telling him. Saying he was worried but demanding to know why Patrick brought Mikey back when he knew Pete was with somebody else. Patrick just sat there quietly & listened to the rant until Pete had finished. He tried to explain that Mikey had been the one that found them all there originally & asked him to leave the other two there. He apologised for leaving & for not realizing that was the guy Pete had been talking about.... That apology just prompted another rant from Pete that maybe he wasn't really paying attention to their conversations then. Patrick knew he needed to let Pete cool off, so he just let him be for a bit.

Things between them had quickly gone back to normal but Pete had made a point to avoid going back to that cemetery. Patrick didn't mind that at all.

It was yet again the end of the school week and Patrick had yet to see Pete since their last class together. This wasn't unusual lately though. The same girl, who Patrick finally found out was named Kai, was very persistently stuck to Pete's side these days. As Patrick walked by the parking lot he heard someone call his name, he stopped and looked over to see Pete attempting to extricate his arm from Kai's grip. He couldn't hear what Pete was telling her, but after a few moments he jogged over to meet Patrick, leaving Kai looking annoyed. "She's driving me nuts" Pete hissed when he got close enough. Patrick sniffed trying to hold back laughter as they headed off toward their houses. Pete gave him a friendly smack on the shoulder and narrowed his eyes. "It's not funny." He pouted, but quickly smiled and changed the subject. "I heard about this really cool place we should go check out! Find out if you can stay over this weekend." Patrick agreed as they parted to go to their own houses.

He couldn't go that night because he had neglected some chores that week. However, he got them done and was knocking on Pete's door, bag in hand, Saturday evening. Pete stepped out, grabbing Patrick's bag and leading him to his room as he spoke quickly. "Let's put your stuff down and go get something to eat before we go." Pete exchanged Patrick's bag for one he already had packed on the floor of his room then they did just that. The two were seated at a table before Patrick asked for an explanation. "So, where is it we're going?" Pete shifted in his seat grinning. That couldn't be good. "I heard about this abandoned building, at the edge of the woods, that's supposed to be haunted." The color drained from Patrick's face. "W-what?" Pete didn't seem to notice. " I know! It's going to be so much fun! Maybe we can get a ghost to grab your shirt" a brief pause as he seemed to have another thought "or better yet, maybe one will scratch me!". Their food arrived and Pete continued excitedly giving wild scenarios he hoped would happen to them on their adventure tonight.

When they had finished their meal it was just starting to get dark. Perfect time to go look for some ghosts, at least according to Pete.

It took them a bit longer to get there than expected, so it was completely dark by the time the pair were nearing where the building should be. Pete dug in his bag, retrieving a couple flashlights and handing one to Patrick. It ended up not quite being at the edge of the woods, but actually a decent hike back into them. When they got inside they immediately thought they heard voices. They looked at eachother "There really are ghosts!" Pete whispered, bouncing on his toes. Patrick doubted the voices to be quite so paranormal. He had a death grip on his flashlight as he followed Pete further down a hallway. There were definitely footsteps on the floor above them, more voices down the hall, laughter. "Pete, I think there are other people here. We should leave." he tugged at his friend's jacket, but was brushed off with "It's fine, don't be such a scaredy cat." They got to the bottom of a stairway, the walls marked with rather unsavory graffiti, when all of a sudden they heard a stifled yelp and somebody running down the stairs. Before they could even move the person had run right into Pete, knocking him over. The quick scuffle ended when Patrick shone his flashlight on the two of them and they realised who the other was. "Kai?" because of course it was her "What are you doing here?" Pete asked the girl who was disentangling herself from him to stand up. He also stood and brushed himself off as she looked at them confused. "A bunch of people from school decided to come here tonight and look for ghosts. Isn't that why you're here?" they both shook their heads "Not exactly" Pete rubbed the back of his neck "I heard some guy talking about it on that call in show on the radio Friday." Kai mouthed "oh" frowning. She quickly attached herself to Pete's arm as per usual though and they decided to continue looking around.

They may not have any supernatural encounters with so many people there, but it was still an interesting building. Lots of rooms off long hallways. They really couldn't tell what it had once been, most of the rooms were near empty. A couple doors were locked. They crossed paths with a few other random groups of people on the second floor. Usually startling each other then all laughing it off and pointing to anything interesting they had found. A couple unfortunate dead animals, desks with typical office supplies. On the third floor, they even stopped and watched as one group was even having a desk chair race down a hallway. A couple more groups joined in as they stood there. Most of the kids Patrick couldn't match a name to, but he definitely recognised one pair of racers. Gerard was sitting in a chair laughing as Frank ran pushing him down the hallway against a couple of football players. Mikey stepped up beside them, much to Pete's horror."Hey, stranger, I see you're playing third wheel again." he said, completely ignoring the couple. Patrick wasn't sure what to do so Pete wouldn't be upset again so he just stammered "Hello, uh, this is my best friend Pete by the way." He gestured as Pete did his best to move to obstruct Kai from Mikey's view. Pete smiled, but Mikey barely glanced at him just giving a quick "hi" and a nod before turning his attention back to the race.

They all stood there in awkward silence another few moments before Patrick noticed some papers on the floor of the room behind them and stepped in to investigate. He really was curious what this place used to be and was hoping for a clue. He heard a few groans, disappointed sighs, and shuffling from the other kids outside as he looked through the pages, but he didn't really care enough who was winning to go check. There was a second doorway within the room, he went in and looked through a desk. A lot more footsteps & muffled conversation from the hall. There were only receipts for coffee & fast food, a few pens, a stapler, paperclips... nothing interesting.

When he stepped back out the races seemed to have stopped. Pete & Kai were nowhere in sight. Almost nobody was. Patrick wondered what had happened. He shone his light up and down the hall and spent several minutes checking the nearby rooms for them to no avail as the remaining few kids left the area. He resigned himself to wandering around alone.

As he tried to find his way back to the stairs, with significantly fewer flashlights in the area, he heard his name being called from the hallway he just passed. He stopped and took a step back shining his light down the hall. He didn't see anyone "Pete?" he called out, hopeful. That wasn't who stepped out from a room & into the light though. Mikey shined his own flashlight at Patrick, squinting at each other as they realized who they were looking at, before walking toward each other. Mikey spoke first "Where were you?" "The room right behind where we had been standing... there were papers in there... nothing good though." Mikey sounded confused "wha?- nevermind" Mikey started leading him down a different hallway & Patrick followed along. He decided he needed to know so he asked "What happened, where did everybody else go?". "Frank decided a chair spinning match was a good idea, one of the jocks puked & everybody decided that was game over. When I noticed you weren't with everybody downstairs I came back up to look for you." Patrick blinked, surprised, looking at the figure walking beside him in the dark. Mikey came back for him but Pete didn't? Or maybe they both did and he just ran into Mikey first... yeah that's probably what happened.

When they got outside it only took a few moments of looking around to find Pete, Kai pulling at his arm. They got closer and could hear her whine "Let's just go." Pete shook her off annoyed and snapped "I've gotta find Patrick" before turning and almost running smack into him. "Oh thank goodness!" He grabbed Patrick by the shoulders "I was worried when we couldn't find you." Patrick was a bit embarrassed to have caused distress. "I'm fine, Pete, Mikey came back to find me." He immediately regretted saying that when he looked around and noticed Mikey was nowhere in sight and Pete would have been none the wiser. Pete narrowed his eyes at him so Patrick quickly tried to change the topic. "Seems like everybody is leaving though we should probably head back to your house." Pete looked around and agreed. Patrick knew they would be having another conversation about this, but at least it could wait until they were back at Pete's.