It's been exactly ten months since Angel's death. Collins was in his apartment; it used to be his and Angel's apartment. Night was approaching and Collins was completely bored and slightly depressed. He scanned the room for something to do, not that there was much, more than half of the stuff that fills his place used to belong to Angel and he definitely couldn't do anything with that.
His eyes instantly stopped at a picture of Angel on a table, his favorite picture. He was out of drag in the photo, it was just him, with a vague, innocent smile. Collins sighed and picked it up and stared at it. He furrowed his brow. He hastily took the picture and placed it in his room, on the nightstand next to the side of the bed where Angel used to sleep. Suddenly, just as he put the picture down on the nightstand, Collins heard a THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! It was like a ceremonial drum, very slow, yet loud and powerful. That's weird... Collins thought. There's probably something wrong with the pipes in this place.
He went back to the kitchen and looked at the clock. "7:09 PM. Ugh, it's too early for anything." He said to himself. He could probably invite the whole gang for dinner.
He grabbed the phone and dialed Mark Roger, and Mimi's number. One ring…two rings…three rings.
"Speeeak." said the answering machine.
"Guys, it's Collins, I uh, was wondering if maybe you guys could come over for dinner since I'm not busy and I know you guys have nothing to do, so-
"Hey Collins." said a female voice familiar to Collins.
"Mimi! Hey, are you there alone?" Collins asked.
"Nah, Mark and Roger are here too. They're just too lazy to pick up the phone."
"Oh, okay. So, how 'bout it? I'm probably gonna order pizza, wanna get a free meal at my place? I'm gonna invite Maureen and Joanne too."
"Sure! Sounds great, but Maureen and Joanne probably can't come, they went to New Jersey to visit Maureen's parents. But, Mark, Roger, and me will be there in half an hour."
"Okay, well, see you there."
"Bye." Mimi then hung up.
Collins hung up and dialed for pizza and placed an order for delivery for a large pizza with extra cheese and also ordered meatballs and french fries. They were gonna have a feast tonight.
Collins decided to go back to his room and hopped on his bed and grabbed a book in the drawer on his nightstand. When he glanced around the room, he saw almost bare room. Everything that was Angel's was placed in the living room or kitchen, and he didn't have much stuff that he could really fill the place. His eyes went back to that the picture of Angel he recently put there, but it was facedown, very neatly placed where it was put up by Collins. Strange, Collins knows that he placed the picture up-right and he didn't hear anything, but he shrugged it off and leaned over to place the picture up again, having it face him.
He continued reading silently and began to feel his eyes starting to strain so he put the book down and rubbed his eyes, and when he looked up, the picture of Angel was gone. Collins was dumbfounded. He looked around the room and had to resort to looking over the edge of the bed; he found the picture on the floor, facedown.
That's impossible, Collins didn't hear anything at all and there was no way that a metal picture frame could fall on a wooden floor without any noise. He was getting a little nervous and took a deep breath, this was getting weird.
He heard a harsh bang coming from the other side of the apartment, almost similar to the one he heard earlier and Collins immediately jumped out of his bed and dropped his book and the picture frame on the bed. Collins realized it was just the door and hurriedly ran over to open in, not looking back in his room.
He slid the door open and in came Mark, Roger, and Mimi.
"Hey!" they all said.
"Hey guys, how you doin'?" Collins asked. He noticed that Mimi was carrying a bottle of wine with her. "All right, you brought wine!" Collins happily cheered,
"Yeah, so is the pizza here?" asked Roger.
"Nah, not yet, but it should be here soon." He said. Everyone went to the table in the kitchen and cleared it. Mark looked around the entire room slowly.
"You know Collins, you should probably get rid of Angel's things, it's making your apartment look really…attic-y" said Mark. The whole apartment was getting a lot of clutter stuffed in it. Collins sighed.
"I know, but I just can't. It would be too hard for me." He said as he poured the wine into four glasses and gave one to every person.
"Well, if you want, we could take it and donate all of it, that's what Angel would do." said Mimi. That's true, Angel would do nearly anything to help nearly anyone, and he had a lot of clothes that might benefit someone else.
"Thanks Mimi, but I just can't, you know? Maybe sometime, but I'm just not ready." Collins said, sadly. The door knocked again. "That's probably the food." Collins really wanted to change the subject.
After almost an hour of eating, drinking, and talking, they somehow got back to the subject of Angel.
"You know, Angel probably would've liked you to put some use to the pickle tub that you just leave in the kitchen." said Mark. The pickle tub was next to the stove, Angel's drumsticks were in it and it seemed to have started to gather dust.
"Guys, I don't really wanna talk about Angel, it still hurts. I'm just…I'm just never gonna get over her." CRASH! All four of them heard something in the room they were in smash. They looked over to the kitchen counter and saw the wine bottle that Mimi brought shattered on the floor and a few shards on the counter, it was about 3/4 empty so there was also some wine spilled.
"What the hell?" Roger yelled out. Collins rushed over and stared down at the shards for a few moments in shock and disbelief, then sighed, grabbed a small trashcan near the fridge and started to pick of the big pieces. Mark, Roger, and Mimi were kind of confused and just watched, until Collins suddenly dropped a piece and recoiled with pain on his face, one of the shards must've cut him.
Mark rushed over and instinctively tried to grab Collins' bleeding hand to examine it, but Collins just pulled his hand back.
"Mark, no! I got AIDS remember?" Collins said frantically.
"But Collins, you're hurt. And don't worry, I'll be fine." Mark said. He hates watching people suffer.
"No, just help pick these up and I'll wrap my hand myself." said Collins. Mark watched him walk quickly to the bathroom and started to extremely carefully picking up the wine bottle pieces and cleaning up the wine spilled on the counter and floor with Mimi and Roger helping.
As Collins was in the bathroom looking for any bandages, he couldn't help but wonder. What is going on? There have been too many weird things happening lately. As he was wrapping the cuts on his hand, he heard a shaking sound for only a second, like the sound of a jar of coffee beans being shaken. He looked down and saw that his AIDS prescription bottle was knocked into the sink. He looked at the clock next to the mirror in the bathroom, it read 8:40. He left his beeper in his room and was supposed to take his pills ten minutes ago. That's weird…what is going on? He was very confused and almost scared, but in a weird way, glad that he didn't completely miss taking his medication, but was still nervous at the sudden change of weird things happening..
After finishing putting bandages on his hand, he took his pills and went back to the kitchen to find Mark, Roger, and Mimi wiping up what's left of the wine from the bottle. "Hey guys," Collins said, a little nervously. "Sorry about everything, but it's just that weird stuff has been happening all day."
"Weird like how?" Mark asked, suddenly very concearned.
"Well, today things have been falling to the ground and I didn't hear or see what caused it, kind of like with the wine bottle, and that's never happened before. Also, I've been hearing these loud sounds that probably have something to do with it. I know it sounds stupid, but it's just these kinds of things never happen here, ever." said Collins. "And…to be honest, I'm kind of…nervous about it."
"Like, scared nervous?" asked Roger, with a smirk on his face.
"Just nervous." said Collins, sternly.
"Collins, I think you had too much wine." said Mimi.
"Maybe you should just go to bed." suggested Roger. Collins got frustrated that no one would listen to him.
"Collins, if it makes you feel better, I'll stay here for the night." said Mark, very eager.
"Really? Why?" asked Mimi.
"Because…it would probably make him feel better." said Mark, which was true, he was sure that Collins would feel safer with a friend around.
"Is that all?" asked Roger.
"Well…actually Collins, I'm just guessing, but I think you may have a ghost." said Mark.
"What? Mark, that's so stupid, there are no such things as ghosts." said Collins.
"Well, since the wine bottle smashed, I've been thinking, and I used to watch a lot of documentaries on ghost when I was a kid, and I had a neighbor who had a ghost in his house, so I know a lot about them, and based on what you've told me and what I've already seen, I think you probably have a poltergeist." said Mark.
"Which is what?" asked Mimi, suddenly very interested.
"Basically a ghost that uses noise and throws stuff around to communicate." Mark replied. That made sense, the throwing of the picture and wine bottle, the taps and thumps Collins had heard, there couldn't be another explanation that they know of. "Well, I don't know for sure, I mean, it usually only happens in really old buildings and it only started today, right?" Mark turned towards Collins, who nodded. "So, maybe I should stay over, to...I don't know, investigate."
"Mark, that's a really dumb idea." said Roger.
"Well, it's the only thing we can do, I mean, until we have proof, no one's gonna help or believe us if we say there's a ghost haunting my place." said Collins.
"Whatever." said Roger.
"This is so awesome, there's a ghost here! I wonder if it's friendly." said Mimi, excited.
"Well, Mimi, we don't know if it's really a ghost, and actually poltergeists are mostly very angry ghosts, that's why they can throw stuff around." said Mark Collins inhaled deeply, beginning to already get nervous.
"Sorry, Collins, but it's true." said Mark
Later...
After Mimi and Roger left, Mark decided that he was gonna sleep on the couch near the kitchen in case Collins got scared, even though Collins kept denying that he was scared. Collins is gonna sleep in his bed, and this time, he put the picture of Angel on his own nightstand, so that he'll be sure to know if anything happens to it and plus, he'll be able to look at Angel.
Collins was just about to sleep and he smiled at the picture of Angel. "Good night, Angel." Collins said, turning off the light and closing his eyes.
After a few hours of sleep, Collins woke up to a SMASH! And saw the picture of Angel was on the floor, halfway flung across the room and smashed against the closet. There was no draft, the windows were closed, and he could hear Mark snoring in the living room. He quickly turned on the light and gave a quick look around the whole room, there was no one, nothing could have cause that picture frame to be thrown around the room and he carefully got out of bed and walked over and picked up the picture frame, his heart racing, and he was starting to sweat. Only the glass was broken and the picture inside of it looked a bit crumbled, like someone was trying to take it out...Collins then heard a tapping coming from the floors, the walls, the ceiling, everywhere all around him. TAP-TAP-TAP-TAP-TAP. It was like the beating of a drumset, fast-paced and loud.
Collins got really scared now. His eyes widened and he dropped the picture frame on the bed and immediately ran to Mark, who was sleeping on the couch. "Mark, Mark! Mark, you idiot, wake up!" Collins yelled frantically. Mark rolled over and blinked multiple times.
"Collins?" he asked softly and tiredly. "What's wrong?"
"A picture frame was tossed to the other side of my room and I know that nothing could have done that and then there was tapping everywhere in the room and it was loud and fast and I think that you're right, there is a ghost." Collins responded. Mark's eyes widened and he stood up.
"...Really?" he asked in disbelief.
"Yeah…it's seriously creeping me out." said Collins.
"Well, what do you want me to do about it, Collins?" asked Mark.
"I don't know…Could you, just sleep in the room with me?"
"What! Are you crazy, Collins? That's so…childish! I'm not gonna share a bed with you!" he yelled, beginning to blush.
"Aw c'mon Mark, it's only for tonight!" Collins replied. Mark slammed back down on the couch and sighed in frustration. Collins seems scared, whatever's going on must be really bad if it got a big guy like him freaked out. Mark thought. He slowly sat up again.
"Fine. Just tonight." said Mark, grabbing his blanket and pillow and following Collins to his room. This is so stupid. Mark thought.
As he entered Collins' room, he saw the picture of Angel that was crumpled and the glass of the frame cracked and some shards on the floor near the closet. "Jeez, you weren't kidding. That is weird." He said. Collins nodded and quickly took the frame and put it in the drawer on his nightstand. He got under the blanket on the bed and Mark got into the other side of the bed, pushing the blanket away from him and towards Collins and covering himself with his own blanket, facing the opposite direction of Collins. He turned off the light.
"Night, Mark." He said.
"Whatever, Collins, just don't kick me." said Mark, practically already asleep. Collins gave a laugh and smiled and went to sleep.
Luckily, nothing else strange happened that night.