The Gone-Away House looked a lot like his grandma's house, now that he saw it.

Well, they had their similarities. The dark, dusty floral print couches, the ancient TV complete with rabbit ear antennae, the bookcase boasting more knicknacks than books... Erik set his satchel on a dusty end-table and rolled his sleeves up in order to more cleanly battle his way past discolored lace curtain to check windows carefully for drafts. Half the coldspots in the world could be attributed to bad insulation, he figured. Charles wasn't going to get away with saying otherwise.

The living room was attached directly to the dining room at the back of the house, which for some reason had a staircase running through it coming down along the wall to empty into the living room. To the right of that mess was the kitchen, spacious on an L set up with a marble island in the center. Erik couldn't help but be a little jealous. He loved to cook and with this kind of kitchen he could really get some work done. There were two doors facing the kitchen, one going to a small bathroom and the other to a walk-in pantry that Erik forged designs on. A third door ran adjacent, which led to a mudroom and then outside.

Erik made sure all the doors were securely shut and double-checked the windows before heading upstairs via the curiously placed second staircase.

" Erik? Is that you?" Charles's voice rang out as the stairs squeaked beneath his weight.

"I think it's the ghost!" he called back.

"Sounds like one fat ghost," Charles replied.

"I think you mean one tall, manly ghost."

"I think I would know if that's what I meant..."

At the top of the stairs was an actual library, which took Erik aback a step. How the fuck many farm-houses had a library? He was beginning to think somewhere in the history of the town someone had simply miswritten "weird as fuck" as "haunted" and gossip had started up from there on.

"Going downstairs!" Charles informed him. He must be using the other staircase.

Erik secured the three windows in the library. Two shared a darling window-seat, looking out onto the stream. This house would actually be really nice if you updated a few things, gave it a better driveway, draining system...Too bad most of the people in town were terrified of it and in turn terrified any newcomers who attempted to live in it. Maybe if the city didn't want it any more, someday Erik could buy it. Another perk about not believing in ghosts was it gave you rock-bottom prices on buying ghost houses.

The Lovegoods were the last family he had known to live there. He'd been five when they moved in but their daughter was years older than him and so he'd never forged an interest in them beyond 1) his mom forbidding him and his dad from having anything to do with them, and 2) the scary stories his friends told him about them. For the first time in his adult life he found himself wondering about them. Namely, about how much they'd paid for the place.

There was a small black box stuck to the end of the hallway and Erik checked the window there before moving along. The hall was mirrored on either end by matching windows, and over the downward stairwell was a linen closet. No windows.

He opened the door across from the staircase: a bedroom. The twin bed was made up with stiff linens and a purple bedspread, the frame thick and rustic. There was a lamp in the corner that didn't work, and some thumb tacks in the walls, but that was absolutely all. Next door was even eerier: it was the baby's room.

Erik had heard all about The Baby, but he assumed it was a story steeped in fiction. It seemed it was only garnished with fiction, because here was a nicely lit little room, a ring of giraffes chomping on each other's tails wallpapered in a repetitive circle, bisecting the walls, peeling and moldy in places. Erik shut the door quickly and moved on. He didn't believe in ghosts but that didn't mean there wasn't something inherently awful about a dead baby's nursery.

There was a small office across the hall, with most of the furniture covered with sheets. The windows were old but sturdy. No drafts.

The last room was the master bedroom, also done up. Charles' things were splayed out, a laptop on the hope chest at the foot of the bed, his bags indenting the mattress. The pillows on the bed were large and plush, a frankly adorable quilt spanning the massive bed. Erik considered stealing the gorgeous thing, and then lay down and considered stealing the entire bed, it was so deep and comfortable. Ghosts got the best digs.

He rested there for a few minutes, letting himself realize that his hangover wasn't done with him yet, that, despite how much excitement and grease and coffee had pushed his hangover to the backburner, it was still very much there, just waiting for him to notice it.

Rubbing his eyes and feeling the pain spark behind them at the pressure, he groaned, rather pitiably—it was wasted on the empty room. Not ready to get up, but desiring to distract himself, Erik reached over for Charles' bag, a plain black backpack like Erik had used in middle-school: dutiful, no-nonsense. He yanked unconcernedly at the closest zipper and pulled out a book stuffed within: Jane Eyre.

Snorting, Erik was about to crack the broken-in paperback open when he heard a long, drawn-out creaking. Jumping slightly, looking down past his feet to the bathroom, he saw that the light was on, and watched as one of the white lacquered cupboards under the sink creaked open and open until it met its limit and eked to a grudging stop.

With aggravation Erik noted that his heart was jittering rapidly in his chest, making it difficult to breathe. He did not believe in ghosts. So how could he allow his body to undermine him like this?

Angrily, he shoved himself up, tossing his pilfered book away and stalking to the bathroom, dropping down and slamming the cupboard shut again on its pitiful contents of dust and rat poison. With a sad sort of groan it popped open again. The catching mechanism was busted, Erik saw, the knob on the door didn't fit the prongs from the cupboard. Glaring, Erik shoved the door in hard, wedging it in place with the help of so many coats of paint. Entrapped, the door stayed shut with an air of thwarted fun, giving off a palpable sense of petulance. Erik sat back on his heels proudly. He'd have to remember to tell Charles about the faulty door—the man was not playing faulty cupboards off as a haunting.

When he stood up his head swam for a second, his hangover demanding to be noticed now that patience had failed it. Erik had tried coffee, greasy food, and flirting—nothing kept the menace at bay. It was time to resort to pharmaceuticals.

He didn't see Charles but he did see his handiwork: every single drawer and cupboard in the kitchen was wide open. He was apparently dealing with the world's messiest paranormal researcher. Grumbling as much, Erik cleaned up after the man, shoving everything closed again but taking a cup when he found one.

The fridge was completely empty, apart from some condiments and a hunk of moldy cheese. There were a couple of Otter Pops in the freezer but even those had an air of decay about them. Tap water would have to do. Filling his cup up at the sink, he fished some painkillers out of his trouser pocket. Thank heavens for far-sightedness.

He downed the pills in one gulp and nearly threw them right back up as he retched at the taste of the water. It was greasy and acrid against his tongue, like death, like something dead, like something had climbed into his mouth and decayed into messy, desperate finality. He choked, retching into the sink, stomach clenching, struggling to push this poison back out of him.

Throat spasming with nausea, Erik rushed for the bathroom, more hopeful than sure that he wouldn't be losing his lunch. He struggled to scrape the taste from his tongue, dragging it against his teeth, and was horrified when he could feel the layer of grime it left behind, gagging and spitting out a wad of black muck into the chipped porcelain sink. A moment was lost staring in horror before he grappled, shaking for some toilet paper, wiping his mouth out and pulling flake after flake of black filth out of him, retching. Yet under the dim light over the mirror his mouth looked fine, and there was no pain as if he'd drunk something destructively caustic. Whatever was in that water, it had looked perfectly clear, but those flakes hadn't come from him.

Shivering and weak with disgust, but no longer gagging, Erik stumbled to the living room, fumbling through his bag till he got to the mints therein, scraping them over every corner of his mouth, wincing at the dueling tastes, only relaxing when mint won out, falling back into the ancient couch, rubbing his eyes as he listened to the floorboards creaking under Charles upstairs again. How strange that he'd played stairwell-hide-n-seek twice with the man now. He grabbed his notebook from his satchel and distracted himself with work.

He looked over his notes from the interview, blushing. He'd have to come up with some more questions for a real interview. His first one sounded more like the Spanish Inquisition. Emma, along with the rest of the star-struck town, would flay him alive if he really wrote an article about Charles being an ignorant charlatan. Plus, it might hurt his chances with the man. Erik didn't know how long Charles was in town for, but if he could manage to sleep with him every one of those days he was pretty sure he'd jump at the chance.

Finger-combing his hair, Erik sat up and grabbed his phone.

He had never seen Charles' show, had no idea if this sort of dullness was normal or if the ghost houses the man usually investigated were a bit more lively. So far he didn't see how this stuff would make good TV. So he went to the Discovery Channel website and luckily there were a couple of episodes online. He had the option between an abandoned prison in Virginia, a family home in Alabama, and an old mansion in Vermont, chose the mansion because it seemed to approximate the Gone-Away House: old, uninhabited, and quaint. He should be able to get background information, ideas for his article, and a concept of how bored he was going to be that day all at once.

The show was distinctly trashy, which was unfortunate because Charles and his team (a snarky blonde girl who was a little too hands-on with Charles for Erik's taste, a lanky bespectacled dork, a redheaded boy, and a slim black man) seemed to handle the situations with intelligence and transparency. The editors meanwhile added theatrical camera swervings, pitchy screeching, and an ominous audio track, along with more cliffhangers than was socially acceptable. While Charles stumbled through a dark playroom, the camera man alternated between shoving the night-vision camera awkwardly close to his face, focusing in on his wide reflective eyes (which were legitimately eerie), and jiggling the camera around as if trying to catch a sprinting cat in the frame instead of an empty room.

Drama was also added by way of creepy monologues by people who claimed to have seen the ghosts there, interspersed with old-timey photos and cheap reenactments. The black man, Armando, and Charles did most studies, while Hank, the lanky one, dealt with the various data they collected and Sean, the redhead, was apparently kept on the show purely for his habit of shrieking when surprised or the slightest bit nervous. Raven, the token girl, was kept on hand for no purpose whatsoever: all she seemed to do was take pictures and make fun of everyone's squeamishness when the situation got squeamish, not to mention cuddle up to Charles. Erik found he distinctly did not approve of this.

Charles was pretty definitely gay in front of him. Why did he allow himself to be manhandled like that by an obvious female? Erik held out hope that it was a production ploy to build up romance-ratings and tried to stop gritting his teeth anytime the two were in the same room together, which luckily wasn't too often as Charles was beholden to his duties and the blonde girl reveled in shirking them.

While Charles whispered ghost-interview questions into the darkness of the playroom, Darwin was searching for cold spots in the cellar, and Sean was hyperventilating at being left alone in the insane former owner's bedroom. Raven was flirting with a camera-man over a cigarette in the front yard.

There was a loud crash and Sean screamed like a banshee as the camera jerked wildly, and Erik's phone promptly shut itself off.

"What th-" was as far as he got before he saw it—breath stilling in his chest, eyes thrown wide.

Because there-in the black screen of his phone, silhouetted against the light of the dining room window-was the shadow of a man.