As much as Warren Graham would have liked to have Spider-Sense, he wasn't so fortunate; but he didn't need to have it to know that something about this barn was off.
Maybe because it was falling apart (and decaying locations were always creepy).
Maybe because it was so out of the way (a.k.a perfect place for when you didn't want undue attention).
Maybe because it was owned by the Prescotts (and Prescotts were always bad news).
Or maybe it was because this place was supposedly linked to whatever had happened to Kate Marsh and Rachel Amber.
Scratch that, it was all of the above. There wasn't any need for spider-sense – just common sense was enough to send every single alarm bell tolling in a sane person's head.
"Wowzer. This place is scary," Max voiced Warren's thoughts.
"Yup," Chloe agreed, inspecting the barn, "real fuckin' shady. Woah, look at this," she pointed to the ground. "Tire tracks. Someone's been here before us. Recently, too."
"And the doors are locked," Max said.
"Yup. Fuckin' figures. Would've been waaay too easy for our miserable butts, right."
"Or it's a trap," Warren huffed, "you know, with the tire tracks and the whole vibe of this place."
"Let me help with the doors, Chloe," Max walked over. Unfortunately, even with their combined efforts of dislodging the lock, the doors didn't budge. "Warren, give us a hand?"
"On it!" Maybe, had Warren Graham been one of the jocks instead, their combined efforts would have yielded fruit. With Warren being Warren, they didn't.
"Son of a bitch!" Chloe kicked the doors in anger and nearly fell on her ass. "The hell're we supposed to do now?"
"This crap looks old," Warren scratched his head, "might just be able to ram your truck through."
Chloe eyed him incredulously. "Dude, I know this is serious and all, but I'm not about to risk my truck falling apart for a chance that this entire thing is a bust and the tire tracks are just from a bunch of teens who have been boozing and fucking here all night."
Warren had no choice but to look down in embarrassment after that verbal onslaught. Max came to his rescue, "Warren's right, Chlo. The barn looks like it's a few stray breezes from falling apart; maybe we really can break in somehow?"
Chloe looked at the barn thoughtfully, then nodded. "Yeah, you got a point, Max. I'll circle all the way around; you see if you can't find a better way to open barn doors from here…Without getting my baby trashed!" she hastily added, already gone around the corner.
Experimentally, Warren tried to kick the barn doors in, much like their blue-haired companion tried earlier; much like before, the result was the same, except Warren did end up on his backside.
"You okay?" Max called over.
"Yup," he groaned massaging his back. "Just my ego. That wasn't very dignified."
Max snorted. "No offense, Warren, but that's a solid steel hinge lock; plus, I know for a fact that Chloe's got you beat in height and in strength, so, unless you know some super-secret science nerd kicking techniques…"
"Sure, laugh it up, Max," the boy waved her off. "Besides, isn't she a nerd too?"
Max's response was a faint smile and a shrug as she went digging through the nearby rubbish looking for something to help the trio get inside. Dusting himself off, Warren went to join her. Their combined efforts, including trying to pick a rusty car apart for a semblance of a tool, ended up unsuccessful. A minurte later, when both of them were leaning against said car, frustrated with the lack of progress, Warren decided to ask Max a question that's been nagging the back of his mind.
"So, uh…Max," he waited until he had girl's full attention, "just wanted to ask you…how'd you guys even find out about this barn in the first place? I'm guessing it has something to do with Nathan since he, you know, is a Prescott, but I didn't hear him say anything about this barn to anyone."
"Uhhh…" Max's eyes widened and she looked really lost for a moment, before her face straightened out and she answered without any hesitation, "I broke into his room and found his phone."
Warren stood up straight in surprise. "You what? Holy shit, Super Max for the win!"
"Yup. Half of his chats were a bunch of gibberish, but I found this one chat with someone, and Nathan mentioned a Prescott Barn outside town. That was my clue."
"Fair enough. But if you're so sure Nathan's tied to all this stuff and he's been texting this person, you think he-"
"I don't know what to think, Warren," Max interrupted him, sighing dejectedly and putting her face in her hands. "This feels so much bigger than all of us, and we've not really even gotten anywhere," she mumbled.
Warren tentatively put a hand on the girl's shoulder. "I know; I'm still kinda shell-shocked from the reveal myself. But we'll get to the bottom of this. You know – two Sherlocks and their trusty sidekick Watson. On the case. The, uh, Prescott case."
His, admittedly, lame cheer speech still managed to uplift Max, who looked at Warren with gratitude in his eyes. "Thanks, Warren, really. You just making an effort to be here means a lot to me – and to Chloe especially. Even if she…has her own ways of showing it."
Crap, Warren just couldn't take any compliments from this girl, could he? Especially when they were so earnest.
Thankfully, a familiar voice saved him from becoming a human tomato in front of Max. "Yo, losers, get your asses in gear! I found us a way in!" Said way in was a literal hole in the wall covered by a simple metal sheet.
Finding a way in lifted Max's spirits up considerably. "Good job, Chloe. I guess your help is….Priceless to us."
Chloe blew a raspberry. "Really, hippie? That was hella awful. You can do better."
Warren crossed his hands. "Well, you can do better than call us losers? Nobody told me this was a competition," Warren crossed his hand.
"Yeah, well, I just made it one. And won it," the girl smiled smugly. "Now, c'mon. Ladies first."
Shaking her head, Max slowly crawled inside. Chloe didn't move.
Neither did Warren.
Chloe looked at him expectantly.
"I have a feeling," Warren spoke up, "that if I crawl inside now, you are never going to let me live it down. Am I right or am I right?"
Chloe shook her head. "Nope. One-time joke only. Scout's honor."
"Don't listen to her, Warren," came a muffled voice from inside the barn, "she was never actually a Scout."
Warren snorted as Chloe groaned and disappeared inside with a disappointed "Way to ruin my fun, Max", then followed her.
If on the outside the barn looked just creepy then on the inside it was downright-
"God, this is way too Blair Witch," Max whispered. "I have goosebumps all over."
That...was actually pretty accurate.
"On point with the references, Super Max," Warren whispered back, nervously looking around. "Three teenagers deep in woods on abandoned property looking to solve a mystery. Only thing that's missing is you being a cinematography student and filming every second of this."
"Yeah, I'd rather have only that missing, rather than three of us eventually."
"C'mon, guys; we're really doing this now," Chloe's voice rang out behind the duo. "I'm a nervous wreck too, but we gotta start doing something. Like…opening this old-ass chest here." Both of them turned around to see the girl open a ragged-looking chest and cough slightly at the amount of dust that came up from the action.
"Geez, a little louder, Chloe!" Max quietly complained as Warren moved in to look at the contents.
"This is kinda ancient," he muttered. Notes, newspaper articles, accounting books – most of them dating back all the way to the beginning of the last century, some even older.
"Jackpot! Old shit," Chloe sarcastically commented.
"You said we're doing this. We gotta take a closer look," Max reminded her. "Worst case scenario, we waste a little time."
Chloe shrugged and kept digging. "Harry Aaron Prescott and family donate new library to Arcadia Bay... Prescott Industries celebrate grand opening…Ugh…"
"Okay, maybe this is a waste of time."
"Keep looking through," Warren said, "Maybe you'll find some…fuck, some dirt on this place? Or on Prescotts in general. Me and Max'll scope around the place."
"Fine, I'm on it."
When Warren turned around, he saw that Max was on the other side of the barn already, digging through another crate. "Find anything?" he asked after getting closer.
Max wordlessly handed him a slip of paper. Warren read through it, then gave it back to Max and shook his head in disbelief. "All the way back to 1903. Hundred and ten years later and nothing's changed."
Max sighed in response. "Then being bastards must be genetic at this point, don't you think?"
"A hundred percent agree," he grinned back and continued his own search. Sadly, the group's combined spirits steadily dropped as all their investigations turned up empty. Even climbing up the top of the barn by boosting each other up (Warren had vehemently protested to Max trying to pull a heavy-looking machine down) had yielded nothing; at least Max got a pretty sweet owl photo out of it.
"Fuck!" Chloe screamed in frustration, kicking and scattering a pile of hay on the floor, "I don't believe it! All of this for nothing!"
"Keep it down, Chloe!" Max tried to calm her down. "The tire tracks are inside the barn too. It means whoever was here with a car had the keys to that lock. There has to be something we're missing here…"
Warren was off to the side, idly playing with a pitchfork and trying to channel his inner . Max was right: whoever was here had the keys to the property. Given the fact that it was Prescott property, it'd be logical to assume that they were the one with the access. It'd also be logical to assume that the current head of the family, namely Sean Prescott, would have no time, or interest, in coming down to this rusty old barn.
That left Nathan Prescott as the sole candidate. Max said he had been in contact with his drug dealer – whoever that was – and asked him to come here. Possibly inside.
Watching Chloe repeatedly kick the hay piles on the floor gave Warren an idea.
"Kate was drugged, right?" he asked out loud.
Both girls turned to him in confusion.
"What?"
"Kate Marsh…she was drugged, right?" Warren continued, with more confidence. "I, uhh…heard that's why she acted the…way she did."
"Yeah, I'm convinced Nathan's drugged her at that Vortex Party," Max nodded.
"And you said you found out about this barn, 'cause the dealer had to come down here to, uh, to deal. Maybe Nathan let him inside?"
Chloe perked up, confused. "Dude, what are you talking about. That didn'- fuck, I mean-" she stammered when Max mouthed something to her, too quietly for him to hear.
Warren frowned. "Max didn't tell you how she got this place off Nathan's phone?"
Chloe plumped on the ground, exhausted. "No, no, she did. I just- this fucking situation is messing with me. Real hard. You…think there's evidence of those two dealing here?"
"I…maybe?" Warren pushed himself off the wall and walked closer, dragging the pitchfork along. "I mean, you going Ape on all those hay piles on the floor gave the idea. Maybe there's something in them? Like, someone dropped something and didn't notice?"
"Looking for a syringe in a haystack?" Chloe shook her head. "There's only one dealer in this town I know of and he isn't an amateur. He wouldn't leave shit behind."
"…but Nathan totally would!" Max suddenly came to the rescue. "He's…not well. Careless. Maybe he did leave something behind?" Warren swore he saw the girl give a subtle wink to Chloe, and the latter instantly relented.
"Fuck me. You're right. Might as well give it a shot." Chloe started digging through the nearest hay pile.
Was that wink a girl code thing? Warren knew even just the bro code in passing; the fabled girl code was lightyears beyond him.
Out of the corner of his eyes, the boy saw Max crouching down and starting to dig through another intact pile. With her bare hands.
That wouldn't do.
"Hey, Max, Max!" Warren rushed over and offered a pitchfork with a grin. "Here's a better tool for that."
Slghtly startled with the display, Max accepted the fork nonethless. "Oh. Thanks, Warren."
"Not a problem. Warren to the rescue, y'know?" that came out lamer than he intended, prompting the boy to nervously scratch his head.
A groan came from behind him. "Oh. My. Fucking. God. You are such a white knight!"
Warren turned around to Chloe sitting with her hands crossed and an incredulous look on her face. He grinned even harder and gave her a thumbs up. "Yup! Someone's gotta be!"
"Well how come you aren't whiteknighting for me? I could with a pitchfork too."
Warren paused. Why wasn't he? Well, the obvious answer was, he was neck deep in his crush on Max, but…there was a lot of leftover hay in this barn. More pitchforks wouldn't hurt.
"Sure, sorry about that," Warren apologized and started moving towards the impromptu entrance they'd found. "I'll head outside, look for something els-"
A really loud screeching noise followed by a frightened gasp forced Chloe on her feet; Warren, on the other hand, jumped up, lost his footing and nearly bonked his head into the wooden pillar. When both of them turned to the source of the noise, it was Max staring at something on the ground with wide eyes.
"What…the hell is this? Guys, get over here!"
It turned out to be a hatch. A real heavy-duty hatch, with an appropriate heavy-duty lock and some nasty-looking scratchmarks from when Max unknowingly dug into it.
Chloe whistled. "Well, it's not the drugs carelessly dropped by Prescott…"
"…but it's certainly something," Max finished for her. "Look at this thing. It's brand new. Why?"
"Super secret off-the-grid laboratory?" Warren offered. "With super-secret illegal research going on inside? It, uh, kinda fits the trope." He added awkwardly when the girls stared at him.
"Well, whatever it fucking is, we know that a) shit this new shouldn't be in a place this ancient," Chloe went on a tangent, "And b) Nathan Prescott is involved, which means this is some typical shady Prescott shit and that we need to get inside. Any suggestions?"
"Key's out of the question, right?" Warren offered
"No can do, Sherlock. This place doesn't really scream "key under a rug" to me."
"Maybe we can smash it? Although it does look too solid…" Max said, taking a closer look at the lock in question.
"Dunno, we'd need something hella strong for that. Like…" Chloe thoughtfully looked up. "Shit, like that heavy thing that Warren begged you not to drop, Max!"
"Sure, but we can't just push it and drop it down," Warren argued. "Best case scenario, it drops on target and puts a giant dent into the hatch and then nothing we can possibly do will open it!"
"Yeah, yeah, I know, but…look," the punk pointed to the hook hanging just above them and then traced a line to the walkway above. "You were up there, Max. There's shit like this on top too, right. The hook and the wires?" When the girl nodded, Chloe continued, "Look, we can hook this motherfucking lock down here, I'll tie the wires together while you two get your butts up there, connect it to that heavy green shit and-"
"Then we drop it and the counterforce rips the lock apart!" Warren finished for her excitedly.
"Yup! Physics for the win, bitches!"
"Wow. Should I resign from my position as Super Max?" Max drawled with humor as both she and Warren walked to the ledge and started climbing up again.
"Nah, you can keep the title. I'll just call myself Chloe the Priceless."
"Oh yeah? Priceless what exactly?"
"Dunno. How about Priceless Looks? Priceless Intellect? Priceless Confidence? Priceless All-Of-The-Above?"
Warren had to suppress a laugh bubbling in his throat at that. It actually felt great to be in a company of these two, even if he couldn't shake the slight, but constant feeling of being a third wheel.
"Ready to push?" Max asked him as she finished hooking the green contraption up, and with his confirmation, they started pushing. "Okay…one…two…WAIT!"
"What? Max?" Warren looked at Max and stepped back in surprise. Her face, full of concentration just a second ago was now locked in a wide-eyed state of fright. She didn't pay him any attention.
"Max? Everything okay up there?" came Chloe's worried voice from below.
"Chlo, move to the side! You- you were too close!"
"What do y- oh- fuck. Sorry." Warren saw her move all the way to the other side of the barn, and blinked in surprise; when Max forcefully exhaled, he turned to face her and blinked in worry.
"Is everything good, Max? You look really pale."
The girl took in a shaky breath. "Y-yeah. Just…realized Chloe might've been too close to the dropping point. And just- nerves, in general."
"Yeah, I can attest. Let's just get back down."
Chloe was already trying to lift the now open hatch door by the time both of the teenagers were back on solid ground. "Shit, this is heavy! Need a little help here!" she hissed, straining visibly. Max and Warren hurried over; the three of them had a much easier time forcing the hatch open.
As the hatch door swung back, Max, Chloe and Warren all took a step back. Opening the hatch had unearthed a set of concrete, and, more importantly, clean-looking stairs leading somewhere underground.
"Woah…what is this?" Max breathed out.
"Jack-fucking-pot is what it is," Chloe clapped in triumph and was the first one to take a slow, tentative step down the stairs.
Max followed her. "This looks so…new. What the heck?"
"Okay, please don't tell me my dumb off-the-grid laboratory theory's about to come true," Warren said, the last to follow them, feeling more anxious with every step he took.
"Wouldn't put it past a Prescott to build one, that's for sure," he heard Chloe's voice from within.
The hatch led to a bunker – a narrow corridor filled with a few conduits, electrical panels and flickering lights; the lighting, especially, gave this place the subtle horror movie-like tonality that Warren didn't miss; however, what, surprisingly, spooked him more was a heavy-duty vault door that lied at the end of the hallway. Max and Chloe were already hard at work inspecting it.
"This is new. Like, I mean brand new," Max spoke quietly, inspecting the keypad next to the door.
"Yup. Someone – and I mean Nathan fucking Prescott – sure doesn't want anyone snooping around here," Chloe replied as she tried to force the door open. "Nope, no luck. Gonna need a code for it."
Warren stayed silent at the base of the stairs. It might've been all the sci-fi horror flicks he'd watched, or the fact that the girls' suspicions about Nathan playing part in whatever had happened to Kate and Rachel held so much more merit with the discovery of the bunker, but this place felt dangerous. It was dangerous.
It might've been dumb (but not entirely baseless paranoia), but the boy felt like he and the girls were not ready for it in the slightest.
As quietly as he could, Warren made his way back upstairs. He could run away, right now. Not on Chloe's car – but just- hike away, back to Blackwell.
Warren squashed that thought faster than he replied to Max's messages. Instead, he went to the pitchfork, discarded on the ground.
It felt good in his hands. Reassuring. Logically speaking, it was probably too long, too heavy, and he was too inflexible and out of shape to do anything meaningful with it, but in that moment, Warren Graham, the sixteen year-old science nerd, just wanted to be sure.
"…it's got a thousand combinations, I can't just keep rewinding 'till I get the right one!" he heard Max and Chloe argue from inside the bunker.
"Damn it! Okay, maybe Warren can pull a magic trick then. Hey Wa- wait, where the fuck is he?" Chloe exclaimed anxiously.
Uh-oh. Warren made a dash towards the hatch.
"Did he fucking bail on us?!"
"No! No, no, no, no, I'm here!" he stumbled down the stairs, nearly impaling his ear with the pitchfork. "I'm here guys!"
Max sighed in relief. "Oh my God, Warren, this really felt like a Blair Witch flick for a second."
"You coulda at least warned us before goin' up. This place is freaky enough already," Chloe eyed the pitchfork and frowned. "Why did you drag that back?"
"Uh." Warren eloquently replied and scratched his hair. "I…" Fuck, just get on with it. "I'm…I dunno…on edge 'cause of this place, like you guys. I want to have something other than my bare hands, y'know? I get that it's stupid and all, but-"
"It's not stupid, Warren," Max reassured him. "We're all on edge here, safe to say."
"Yup, and it's not like I'm completely harmless myself," Chloe dragged a flip-knife out of her back pocket. "Neither is Max. So I say we're set up pretty good." Relieved, Warren leaned the pitchfork against one of the walls and perked up when the punk called out his name again, "We got a tough-looking lock here, need your expertise."
Warren inspected the number pad for a total of three seconds before realizing he was totally helpless. "This kind of thing is more Brooke's specialty than mine, sorry. Can't really use my chemical knowledge here."
"That's ok, Warren, I think I got it," Max approached the pad herself. "Look, these three numbers here – two, five, four – they're more worn out than others. The code has to be made of these three numbers."
"Six combinations? That's great, but we don't know if the panel locks out after a few failed attempts," Warren mused.
"Somehow, I don't think that's going to be a problem," Chloe slowly walked his view and leaned against the wall, smirking. "Observe."
Right on cue, Max pressed a single combination, and the door unlocked with an affirmative beep.
"See? Bear witness to the power of Super Max."
Warren's eyes widened. "Holy crap, I thought that only worked in the movies!"
"Well, we kind of are in a Blair With ripoff, so…" Max smiled slyly. She was about to open the door before Warren grabbed her hand.
"Guys, wait! What if somebody's in there? We can't just barge inside."
Chloe huffed. "With the amount of fucking locks this place has, I don't think anyone's inside. Unless they're the ones locked inside."
"Taking it slow right now wouldn't hurt," Max intervened, "We're this close anyway, we don't have to hurry."
Chloe rolled her eyes. "Fiiine. How you wanna play this?"
Warren reached out and grabbed his pitchfork. "Either Chloe or I go in first cause we got the, um," he tapped the tool in his hands. "Max'll go behind us."
"Works for me. I'm up first then; I figured, if anything, I've been in more scrapes than both of you,"
"Are you sure, Chlo?" Max asked with worry.
"Well, fuck, no, I'm actually pretty strung up right now; buuut, if anything happens, you know," Chloe made a weird twisting motion with finger that Warren did not get the meaning of.
Max frowned, but relented and started opening the door as both of them grouped up. "Crap. Okay. Get ready guys. One…two…three!" Despite considerable effort on Max's part, the door opened agonizingly slowly. As soon as there was enough space to do so, Chloe suddenly flipped her knife open and rushed inside; Warren was hot on her heels, careful not to point his pitchfork in the direction of the girl.
Finally, they were in the bunker.
