Lance and Keith stood outside of the infamous abandoned hospital on the outskirts of town. When Lance was dared to spend a night there, he couldn't bring himself to back down from something as simple as that. As for Keith; he only went because he knew Lance would hurt himself if he was alone. Probably make it five feet into the building and run into a wall or something, and Keith couldn't let his boyfriend do something as stupid as that. Most people that knew them haven't even noticed the change in their actions towards each other, and neither of them knew how to tell their friends that the former rivals were now lovers.
"Ladies first." Lance said and opened the front door for Keith. Keith punched Lance in the stomach, light enough not to hurt him, before walking into the hospital. The two weren't able to enter through the front door because the police were sitting outside of the hospital; they weren't the first teenagers trying to sneak in in the middle of the night, but they are going to be the first to spend the entire night. Thing is, a lot of people have tried to spend the night here before, but never made it. All of them would say something about cold spots; wind, as Keith explained it, and banging; 'it's an old place, of course stuff is going to be falling and making noises' he explained every time someone would try and tell him tales from this hospital. The frightened teenagers would run out of the hospital before anything went farther than that.
"Did you remember to bring a flashlight?" Keith asked, he doubted Lance would remember something as critical as that and had brought his own, but every once in awhile Lance would surprise him. This was not one of those times. Lance stared at him blankly as though he just now thought of bringing a flashlight. "Don't worry, I have one."
"That's why you're my boyfriend." He said happily.
"I thought it was because you are jealous." Keith responded.
"Why would I be jealous?" Lance asked confused.
"Because I'm more awesome then you will ever be." Keith said, messing with his boyfriend. For whatever reason Lance had this thing about being better than Keith at everything, something Keith would exploit every chance he got. And that one short sentence was enough to set him off.
"Just because you brought a flashlight you think you are that much better than me? I don't need a flashlight." Lance said and started walking down the hallway. It wasn't long after Lance left the safety of the light that Keith heard a few bangs and a groan from Lance. Realizing that he needed to check on his boyfriend to make sure he isn't really hurt, Keith walked in the direction of the noise. He found Lance lying on the ground next to an ancient gurney that had been knocked over, most likely by Lance.
"Are you okay?" Keith asked while chuckling a little. He really was concerned for his boyfriend, but it was kind of his fault for walking around so carelessly.
"Shut up." Lance said while he laid on the floor for another moment. "I'm fine." He said as he stood up. "So, where do you want to go first Mullet Boy?" Lance asked mischievously. Lance knew calling Keith 'Mullet Boy' annoyed him, but since they started dating it was more like a pet name than an insult.
"Well, I want to check out the tunnels under this place." Keith responded. That was also considered the most 'haunted' part of the hospital considering the tunnels were how they disposed of the dead patients.
"Of course you want to go right to the most haunted place right away. Why don't we do a little exploring before hand?" Lance offered. "We can wait till later to go down there." Keith checked his phone, it was only nine twenty, and his phone was about to die. He should have thought about charging it before he left.
"Then where do you want to go?" Keith asked. Lance smiled wide.
"Let's go to the psych ward." He said excitedly. Before Keith could say anything Lance grabbed his hand and started pulling him through the hospital.
"Do you even know where you are going?" Keith asked after ten minutes of walking around and they were still on the first floor. The psych ward was on the second floor of this four floored hospital.
"I'm trying to find the stairs." Lance said frustratedly. Keith looked down one of the adjacent hallways and spotted a sign. 'One of those signs that give us directions' Keith thought.
"Lance." Keith got Lance's attention and started pulling him down the other hallway toward the sign he had seen. Neither of them made a move to let go of the other's hand, subconsciously having that connection was calming them both. Being in such a run down place will put anyone's nerves on edge. When they made it to the sign it had arrows pointing in different directions; most of the letters had started peeling, but it was still legible. "The stairs are that way." Keith said after looking at the sign for a few moments and finding the direction they needed to go in. Lance was still reading the sign and was pulled a little roughly by his boyfriend.
"I was still reading that." He complained.
"We'll find another sign and you can read that." Keith answered. It took Keith only a couple of minutes to find the stairs they had been looking for, by the looks of it they had passed those stairs at least twice while walking around aimlessly with Lance leading the way. Keith had been memorizing the layout of the hospital to the best of his abilities in case there was an emergency and they needed to get out quickly. The flashlight was only able to illuminate part of the staircase, and from what Keith could see it was safe to go up.
"What are you waiting for?" Lance asked impatiently as he started heading up the stairs.
"I don't want either of us getting hurt tonight, that's all." Keith answered.
"What's the worst that could happen?" Lance said, removing his hand from Keith's to make a point out of his comment. Just as he said that he slipped on the next step.
"You didn't need to prove my point." Keith said as he caught his boyfriend before he fell down the stairs.
"See, I'm fine! You don't need to worry, we have each other." Lance said after he was steadyed. They were about to start up the stairs again when the sound of a slamming door echoed through the floor below them. "What was that?"
"Just a door being blown shut by an open window." Keith explained. That seemed to help him calm down, but Lance wasn't so sure about believing his explanation. Unlike Keith, Lance wasn't a complete skeptic. He believed in that kind of thing, but would never assume something was paranormal without a good enough reason. A slamming door wasn't enough to make him leave before the night was over.
They continued walking around until they had found their destination. Large doors stood tightly closed in front of them; chained and padlocked in front of them ominously. The chains looked new; someone recently must have come up here and padlocked it. A few moments went by before Lance spoke.
"Are you going to open it?" Lance asked and nudged Keith. He sighed.
"Yeah, I got it." With a few years of experience Keith had gotten pretty good at picking locks. He was able to find a few small objects off the floor that he could use to pick the lock. It only took Keith a minute to get the lock off, and Lance took the chain off, mainly so he could say Keith didn't do all the work. Once they got the doors opened Lance waited for Keith to walk through the doorway first.
"Thanks for opening the door." He whispered into Keith's ear as he wrapped his arms around him. To show his gratitude he gently kissed his boyfriend's neck.
"No problem." Lance didn't need a light to know Keith was blushing. Even after being with Lance for over two months, he was still shy when showed affection.
"Lead the way." Lance whispered in his ear and let go of him to grab his hand instead. Keith started walking down the hallway slowly, not really knowing what to do now that they were there. Half way down the large hallway Lance pulled Keith into one of the rooms.
"What are you-" Lance cut him off by pressing his lips against Keith's. It didn't take long for Keith to melt into the kiss, but he reluctantly stopped when he remembered where they were. "This really isn't the best place." He said
"Don't think. Just enjoy." Lance responded abruptly. While their lips were locked they stumbled out of the hallway and farther into the room. Lance opened his eyes for only a second, but in that second he saw a shadow move down the hallway through the doorway. "Did you see that?" What was he saying? Of course Keith wouldn't have been able to see that. Whatever it was it freaked out Lance; who ran into the hallway to make sure there was nothing there that could have been moved by the wind or worse, someone else there.
"Lance, what are you doing?" Keith rushed out of the room; completely confused by Lance's actions. Was he just messing with him?
"It's nothing, I just thought I saw something." Lance said. He didn't want to say much more about it because Keith would never believe him, but he hadn't found anything in the hallway that could explain what he saw. It looked like someone had been walking down the hallway. Everything that was sitting in the hallway looked as though it hadn't been moved in years. Lance quickly checked the time on his phone. It had only been an hour. This night is going by slower than he thought.
"It probably was just your eyes playing tricks on you." Keith said, and picked up the flashlight he had set down when they started kissing. "Do you want to go to the tunnels now?" Keith offered to change the subject.
"Huh? Sure." Lance hadn't been paying much attention, but thought agreeing would just be easier. Where were they going now? It didn't matter much to Lance because Keith was leading the way. Like before, they held hands as they made their way through the hospital, but this time Lance was holding on tighter than before.
"Did you hear that?" Keith asked as they were walking down a hallway on the first floor.
"Hear what?" Lance asked. He hadn't heard anything, and was confused and unnerved by Keith's question.
"Oh, I just thought I heard something moving." He said and looked over his shoulder. Most people wouldn't have been able to notice the difference in Keith's demeanor, but Lance wasn't just anyone. He could tell that Keith was tense; and more than just a little tense.
"Do you want to check?" Lance asked reluctantly, but he knew that if they didn't Keith would be like that all night.
"Yes." He said and turned around instantly. It was as though he knew exactly where to go. Lance was almost running trying to keep up with Keith, who stopped so suddenly that Lance ran into him. He had turned to look into one of the rooms. Moving the flashlight so every part of the room had been efficiently searched.
"Are you good now?" Lance asked and put a hand on Keith's arm. He jumped a little, unexpecting the touch.
"No, there's a bed or something in there flipped on its side."
"So you are going to see if there's anything behind it?" Lance asked, not sure how much he liked that idea.
"It'll only take a second." Keith said and shrugged.
"Then go ahead, Mullet Boy." Lance said nervously. Neither of them moved for a few moments until finally Keith took the first step into the room. Lance followed closely behind. With their first steps into the room, both of them realized it was much colder in that room than the rest of the hospital they have been in yet. 'That's probably not a good sign.' Lance thought. Halfway through the room both of the boys started getting a strong feeling that someone was watching them, but neither of them would say anything to the other.
"Don't go… tunnels… He's there." The last two words were much louder than the others. Lance wasn't even sure what the first words were, most of it was mumbles. Nevertheless, Lance grabbed onto Keith. Both of them had broken out in goosebumps. Just when they thought it couldn't get creepier the flashlight started flickering, and both of them held their breath. If that light went out then they wouldn't be able to see where they were going for the rest of the night. Keith hit the flashlight against his hand a few times and the beam steadied. They were relieved to not see a figure standing in the light of the flashlight as there would be in every horror movie ever. Once things calmed down Keith was the first to speak.
"Did you hear that?" He asked.
"Yeah, I think it would be a good idea to stay out of the tunnels tonight." Lance answered. Keith calmed himself, he had come into this room thinking someone was in here. They had to be hiding behind the bed in the corner of the room; that explains the weird voice they heard. He quickly walked across the room before he lost the courage, but when he looked behind the bed there was nothing. "Keith!" Lance shouted as he left him standing in the middle of the room by himself.
"What?" He asked, Half expecting to turn and see something next to Lance.
"It's only eleven!" Lance said exhaustively. "We have until six in the morning! Maybe we should find a room and just spend the night in that one room?" Lance offered. It would be the best way to not risk running into anything unexpected.
"That 'voice' was just the wind, Lance, there's nothing to worry about." Keith told him; though he didn't really believe it himself. It was the only thing that made sense to him, however.
"Yeah, I guess that could make sense. Sometimes the wind can make sounds." Lance tried to convince himself. "But I'm still not going into those tunnels." He said stubbornly.
"Why? You scared?" Keith taunted.
"No!" Lance sternly responded.
"Then let's go." Keith pulled Lance out of the room. That room was giving Keith a bad feeling. Both of them were trying to look brave in front of the other, but it wasn't helping either of them. They quickly scurried to the entrance of the tunnels. They stood side by side, waiting for the other to make the first move.
"I still think my idea is better." Lance added before taking the first step. Keith quickly followed. Nothing felt off about the tunnels like in the room before, but both of them would jump when they saw something, normally an old gurney, along the tunnel wall. One time they found an old wheelchair that was standing upright. Thankfully there was no one in it.
"Why is that here?" Keith asked outloud.
"Who knows? Can we leave now?" Lance asked hopeful.
"I thought you were the one who wanted to come down here?" Keith asked. Lance had been talking about how awesome it would be to go down into those tunnels for the past few days, but now that he was there he didn't think it was that good of an idea.
"Not after that creepy voice warned us not to go here!" Lance shouted; his voice echoing off the tunnels walls. At first neither of them noticed there was another noise among the echos. Keith turned around to see where the noise was coming from. It was coming from the way they had entered the tunnels.
"What's making that noise?" Keith asked as the sound was still beyond the light of his flashlight. The sound was a piercing squeak that sounded like old wheels turning.
"I don't think I want to know." Lance said as he turned around and pretended the noise wasn't there by whistling over it. Just as Lance turned around an old gurney rolled into view. At first Keith didn't know what to think; there hadn't been a gurney for at least a few minutes, that would mean it had to been rolled that far. Is the tunnel slanted? Could that be why it had moved?
"How many people knew we were going to be here tonight?" Keith finally asked. That's the only explanation he could think of. Someone must have known they were going to be here, so they decided to play a prank.
"No one I know of, I was just going to take pictures every once in awhile as proof. But I didn't tell anyone I was going to be here tonight. Did you?" Lance asked and mistakenly turned around. The second he saw the gurney he paled significantly. "Wasn't that thing at the beginning of the tunnel, on its side?!" He forcefully whispered. Keith knew he had to calm Lance down before he started freaking out.
"Lance, what did we promise each other when we started dating?" Keith asked. Both of the boys had traits that would get them into fights; Lance with his conceitedness; and Keith with his hotheadedness, so they promised to protect each other whenever the other needed help. Mainly get each other out of stupid school fights, nothing like this.
"How do you plan on protecting either of us from ghosts?" Lance yelled, obviously not feeling any better about this situation. Honestly, that stumped Keith; he didn't know what to do, but he needed to come up with something to get Lance to calm down.
"I spent a summer with this woman who does voodoo. She taught me a few things." Keith said unconvincingly. It wasn't a lie, but he had forgotten almost everything she had taught him. Except for how to hex people, and her constant nagging to be careful because the hex could come back at him three fold. Lance looked at Keith for a few moments.
"Okay, bu-" Lance stopped talking when the gurney that had stopped in front of them started moving again. It was moving much faster than it had before; directly at the two boys standing in the tunnel. Lance pushed himself up against the side of the tunnel, but Keith stood there watching as the gurney got closer. "What are you doing?" Lance said, but once the gurney got within an arm's length of Keith he flipped it.
"This is bullshit. Like a moving gurney is supposed to scare me." Keith was clearly agitated now, and Lance had no idea how that happened. Normally he would be able to tell when Keith was going to lose his cool like that, but this was so unexpected and quick.
"Keith?" Lance asked, hoping that now the gurney wasn't going to be moving anytime soon he would calm down. Keith turned to glare at Lance for a moment, but then he slowly seemed to realize that it was Lance beside him and he softened.
"Sorry, this place is just a little too creepy for me." He said with a chuckle. Lance quickly interlaced their fingers.
"We should get out of this place, don't you think?"
"You're suggesting you lose a dare?" Keith asked surprised. Lance would never do such a thing.
"No! I mean, let's get out of the tunnels. It's really weird down here." Lance clarified. There was no way he would ever lose this dare, not when they've already been freaked out almost to the point of breaking.
"Sure, though I'm still betting on it just being some prankster trying to scare us." Keith said, reassuring himself.
"Don't you think we would hear their footsteps if it was." Lance had a point, sound seemed to reverberate through these tunnels. If there was someone else here they would have definitely heard them by now.
"Why do you choose now to use your brain?" Keith complained. Lance would have responded to that comment any other time, but now both of them were more focused on their surroundings.
It didn't take them long to get out of the tunnels. After a few minutes of heading back, they both started a silent competition of who could make it to the exit before the other. Needless to say they started running, and Lance tripped, but still managed to keep up with Keith; who slowed down marginally for him. Their pathetic competition ended when they both reached the door at the same time and got stuck in the doorway.
"Move out of the way Mullet Boy!"
"Why don't you move?"
"Why don't you?"
"It isn't that big of a deal!"
"If it is then move already!"
"Fine!" Keith said and backed out of the doorway letting Lance hit the floor.
"Hah, I win." Lance said happily. Both of them had forgotten about the strange events that had taken place only minutes before. That is, until Lance turned around to find someone, with no defined edges or features, standing behind Keith. In the dim light from behind the flashlight, Lance couldn't tell exactly what he saw but he was fine with that. Instinctively Lance ran towards Keith and pulled him through the doorway before slamming the door in front of whatever it was he had seen.
"What was that all about?" Keith asked, still completely oblivious to the figure that had been behind him.
"Heheh well…" He tried coming up with a lie to tell Keith.
"Tell me the truth Lance." Keith knew all of his telltale signs he was lying or was going to attempt to lie to him.
"There was something behind you."
"What do you mean 'something'?"
"There was a shadow, but it wasn't stuck to the wall or anything. It was like it was standing right behind you." Lance explained. Keith didn't know how to respond. Any other day he would say Lance was just seeing things, but after all that has happened that night, he didn't doubt him.
"This place is seriously creepy. Let's never go here again." Keith said, and the two nodded in unison. "What time is it?" He asked. Even though they planned on never going here again they still had to spend the night. Lance glanced at his phone screen.
"It's one in the morning." He said exhausted.
"Only five more hours." Keith faked optimism. "Maybe we can sleep off those five hours?" He added.
"Do you think you could really fall asleep in here?" Lance asked surprised.
"Well, once you get over the whole creepy feel, sleep should be easy."
"And the heat." Lance added. It was the beginning of June and the heat had already started, though it was still relatively cold. Lance just seemed to be more comfortable when it was freezing for whatever reason. He even once talked about moving to Alaska for the cold weather; Keith immediately talked him out of it because he wasn't about to move to the north most state to freeze his butt off, not even for Lance.
"It's not even that hot!" Keith exclaimed.
"Do you know where the exit is?" Lance changed the topic absentmindedly.
"Of course, but I thought we weren't leaving yet?"
"Hell no, I just want to be next to it so we can leave right away in the morning." Lance responded. Keith hummed in approval. He's learned to never agree with Lance verbally, the last time he did that Lance had to make a full five minute speech about it. Keith lead the way toward the exit. Funny thing was that it was feeling more comfortable now. The echos of their footsteps didn't bother them anymore, the old, corroded hospital items didn't bother them as much, and they were just enjoying each other company. You see, they've already been through the worst of it and are still there, what else could go wrong?
Once they finally made it to the exit Keith tried to hold back a yawn, but failed completely and Lance was forced into a yawn as well. They have spend the whole night running around this abandoned place; it only made sense that they both were exhausted. Lance made his way to a spot that was close enough to the door that they could be outside in a step and started cleaning it. There had been a lot of dirt, and probably dead insects, but Lance didn't care. He just wanted to sit down. Keith started cleaning off a spot next to Lance so they both could sit down.
"I feel weird saying this, but I think this night has actually been quite fun." Keith said once he had cleaned his spot enough to sit down.
"How can you say that?" Lance gawked at him. "It was utterly terrifying."
"It wasn't that scary. Neither of us got hurt, right? I'm just going to consider this night being like going through a haunted house on Halloween."
"Except that instead of people trying to scare us there were serious ghosts!? To me that's not fun."
"Lance, I'm too tired to be scared right now."
"It's only one forty am." Lance responded. Just then Keith leaned his head on Lance's shoulder.
"You're not tired because all you do is sleep all day." Keith mumbled.
"Do not." Lance mumbled; he was feeling tired now that the adrenaline was gone. Maybe it won't be hard for them to sleep like this. Slowly, the two were able to doze off side by side.
Lance was the first to wake up. The sun was out; they must have made it through the night. He checked his phone. It was almost seven. He turned his attention to Keith and was about to wake him up; until a plan started forming. Lance never went anywhere without a sharpie; just for occasions like this. With a mischievous grin Lance pulled out his sharpie. What should he draw first?
With Lance's minimal artistic ability he decided that the best thing to draw was whiskers and he colored the tip of Keith's nose. He was proud of his achievement and knew that all that was left was to wake Keith up.
"Hey Keith." Lance whispered in his ear and nudged him. The first time that Lance tried waking Keith up he dumped ice water on him and learned that if he ever did anything like that again he would be punched; it was more of an instinctive reaction of Keith's than anything personal. Keith hummed before slowly opening his eyes.
"Looks like it's morning already." He sleepily muttered.
"Yep! Time to get out of here!" Lance said with a smile; mainly because Keith was clueless about the sharpie on his face, but of course, Keith couldn't know that was the reason for Lance's smiling.
"Okay." Keith got up and followed Lance out the door. How long is it going to take for him to notice the sharpie? The longer Keith was clueless about it the harder it got for Lance to not burst out laughing. Finally, Lance gave up once they made it around to the front of the hospital. He took a picture of Keith, smile at it, then showed him the picture. "What is this?" He took Lance's phone to look at the picture he was showing him. Then he noticed the sharpie. A hundred different thoughts of what he wanted to do to Lance raced through his mind. Even after a night like last night he's still immature.
"I'm sorry, it was just the perfect opportunity! I couldn't pass it up." Lance said while laughing.
"Well now it's the perfect opportunity for me to do this." Keith said before throwing Lance's phone into one of the hospital's windows. Lance just watched in horror as his phone was back into the place he never wanted to go into again.
"Why would you do that?"
"You seemed to have enjoyed your time in there last night, so I thought you wouldn't mind having another reason to get back in there." Lance then started giving Keith puppy-dog eyes. "It's your own stupid fault." Keith tried to reason, however, Lance still wasn't giving up. "Fine!" Keith said and walked up to the window. It seemed like all of the glass had broken off already, so it wouldn't be hard for Keith to enter in through the window, but he wouldn't have to do that. He found Lance's phone facing up on the windowsill. Quickly, he glanced around the room, even though he was hoping not to see anything. That wasn't what he should have been worrying about because as he was leaning in the window he heard a little girl's laugh.
"Kitty." He heard the little girl's voice say. Keith didn't know if he should be mad that he was called kitty, or freaked out by the appearance of the phone and the voice. Either way he vowed to never set foot in that place again.
"Here's your phone, idiot." He said as he handed Lance his phone.
"Thanks, you're the best." Lance seemed to be oblivious to the fact that Keith should have gone inside the building to get his phone. Both of them left the place happy to never visit again.
What neither of them noticed was that while the phone was in the hospital another picture had been taken. One that would solidify their vow of never returning.