Disclaimer: APH doesn't belong to me; recognizable characters are borrowed for non-profit purposes. Greg is the only OC of mine; any relation he may appear to have to anyone else is purely coincidental. Disclaimer used to make sure the 'sharing' buttons don't get in the way.
It was just after one-thirty in the morning when Mr. McNeil had gone to sleep and not an hour later when someone arrived on his front step. Greg McNeil awoke to a rapping on the front door in the parlor with a mounting headache from earlier that day coming back and felt a bud of severe irritation blooming in his chest. He was resolved to ignore whomever was at his door, but the casual knocking turned to persistent pounding and he whipped the covers off the length of his body in one go, threw his legs over the side of the bed, and covered himself in a robe. Tying a knot, he went down the hallway to the front room to the door.
'Probably more lost travelers.' He thought irritably to himself and lifted the cover to the peephole before trying to make a face out through the tiny opening.
"What'd ya want?" he groused. He caught strands of blond hair.
There were soft hollow thudding sounds coming from the wooden porch the stranger stood on as they shifted steps, "Do you have room?" They asked, the voice was that of a male. Sounded young, and loud for this time of night. Er, morning.
"What?"
"Move over." Another young male voice, speaking softly as if hushing the first inquirer before asking Greg, "Can we stay here for the night? Do you have any room?" Couple of kids out on the road, eh? Sounded like troublemakers.
"No, I don't. Move along now. Do you have any idea what time it is?" When he didn't hear them start to leave he reached over to the umbrella rack in the corner to pull out a lead bat. Squeezing the handle and the muscles in his arm tightened around the worn tape. "There's a town further down the road, now get!"
To his relief it sounded as if the two were walking away after a few more silent moments that almost got his heart pumping faster. They stepped off his porch and went down the steps. He knew they were in the lot when he heard gravel being tread upon, there was dirt for a lawn in front of his house and small loose rock around the gas pumps he owned. He waited until they started the engine to their…bike? and roared off before he sat down. He waited a half hour with the bat across his knees, and another with all the lights off just to make sure they didn't come back.
He wasn't sure when he had fallen asleep, but Greg was slowly brought back to consciousness when he heard a faint rustling. It sounded like it was coming from just outside his window, around the side of the house, leisurely walking to the front. Greg had fallen asleep slumped in the couch, it seemed. At the sound of the softest footsteps he ever heard, he tightened his grip on the bat in his hand that had gone lax as he slept. Senses on alert, Greg's muscles tensed and he very slowly tried to sit up without causing the couch to creak.
The footsteps were walking around the length of the porch at a relative pace, a shadow passed by the window, then he heard the lone walker trek over the gravel in the lot in the same way. He got up from the couch and made his way over to the front window near the door. He took the edge of the curtain in the tips of his forefinger and thumb and gently pulled it sideways to peek through the tiny gap he made. He hoped he was being inconspicuous.
A shadowy figure stood in the lot looking to and fro on the ground, searching for something. Bending down, it looked at the indents in the pebbly bed made by recent tire wear. They delicately laid a hand into the curves illuminated by a disappearing moon. Greg couldn't tell what gender the person was, there were no curves to suggest female nor was it overtly male in stature or gesture. He couldn't be sure but there didn't seem to be any clothes on them either, and their body almost seemed to be silvery under the moon. Studying the stranger, he almost didn't see the other one walking around in a crouch. Same build, grace, and silver coloring as the first checking out the lot. From the way they were moving one would think they were sniffing the ground. Oh - another one! How many of these weirdos are out there? It was almost as if his property was surrounded! Leaning into the window to get a better view of them walking around outside, he shifted his weight to the front of his foot, which caused a loud creak.
His heart pounded and felt the blood pumping wildly through the sides of his neck when he saw the mass of them all start to slow to a pause. The closest, in the lot, stopped moving completely. From being bent over, looking at the ground, they sat straight up like the crack of a whip at their back, and slowly tilted their head as if listening. Then their head snapped around and looked in his direction.
Greg let go of the curtain and ducked back behind the wall. Breath deepening and stomach churning, he brought the bat level to his chest. 'What the hell is wrong with me? I've faced worse all on my own.' He thought furiously. 'I've held out against biker gangs and brainless punks who thought they were real big with a gun under their shirt. These people don't even look armed, in fact, they looked naked!' His heavy breathing was all he could hear in this sudden death of noise from the outside world. Why was it so silent all of a sudden? Not even animal noises or the sound of wind blowing was present.
'What's with this damn quiet?'
Greg didn't hear anything and decided to check. He took the edge of the curtain again and pulled it away like he did before to make sure. Unearthly silence still reigning, he dared to take a peek even though his ears started ringing and his heart felt like it was being constricted.
The same heart almost stopped completely when he got a good look at an entirely gray face in front of him. His eyes went wide as dual empty sockets met his stare. Flesh pulled back from the slit on the lower half of its face to reveal serrated, triangular teeth at odd angles in its mouth as it grinned at him.
The sharp intake of air he took to scream never left his throat as the window shattered and he was yanked out.
"Matthew." Was whispered in the dark of the musty room, his twin didn't stir. "Mattie, did you hear that?"
He just slept on because they hadn't gotten more than three or four hours a day for a long while and he just crashed as soon as they were sheltered in the cheap hotel room. Alfred wanted to let him sleep because he knew he was so tired, they both were, but another part of him wanted him to be up so he wasn't so afraid of that rustling noise outside the window. Or that skittering across the dirty floor near the corners where all those shadows seem to move. Alfred tried to quiet his inhale and exhale so he could listen out for anyone, or anything, that might be nearby, hoping they couldn't hear him breathing just because the sound filled his head. It reminded him of when he'd wake up in the middle of the night from nightmares as a kid and he'd be so hyperaware of his surroundings he wouldn't be able to go back to sleep. Then he'd just lay there, stiff, with his nerves prickling and wait for morning.
Alfred slowly lay back down next to his brother and tried to settle under the cold thin sheets. He listened a while longer before he shuffled closer to his brother, for warmth and not out of fear or anything, yawned, then watched the room a little longer until heavy eyelids closed in sleep.
There was a creaking noise just outside the door when both boys were still and their breathing was even. Like footsteps, the sound traveled away from the door after moving around in front of it for a while; it stopped at the end of the hall. The shadows in the corners moved like a living entity and crept in further into the room and straightened out over the floor like dark mist to waft slowly and heavily near the underside of the bed. It never left completely until the sunlight filled the entire room.
A/N: Slow start, but every story needs a beginning. Hope it got a bit of interest. As in a lot of fanfics, the characters are going to be OOC compared to their versions in the anime. So, sorry.