Chapter Nineteen

"MENTAL WOUNDS STILL SCREAMING

LIFE'S A BITTER SHAAAAME!

I'M GOIN' OFF THE RAILS OF A CRAZY TRAIN!

I'M GOIN' OFF THE RAILS OF A CRAZY TRAIN!"

Robbie and Will were singing the song together almost maniacally. They had thrown off their jackets and loosened their ties, their faces shining. About four times they had listened to that song, and Will was loving it.

"WOOOO!" he yelled.

Robbie laughed. "I should really introduce you to my friend Kyle, he can play a mean guitar."

"Is he in a band?" Will asked.

"Yeah, they play at clubs once in a while, they're called Poison's Harmony."

"I'll have to hear them sometime." Will looked at the clock. "Robbie, what time did you say that show started?"

"Seven sharp, but Riley's got to be there by six. Why?"

"It's five fifty two right now."

Robbie turned off the music and walked over to his side. "That's strange," he said. "She told me she wanted to leave by now..."

"Something's wrong, I know it is," said Will, his eyes full of concern.

"Yeah, yeah," said Robbie quietly, not taking his eyes off the clock. "Yeah, let's go check on her, make sure everything's all r - hey! Wait for me!" Will was already out the door.Robbie followed at a run down the hall to the elevator. Will jammed the up button impatiently, but the light wouldn't even come on to in to indicate that the car was coming.

"It won't work!" he cried.

"We'll have to take the stairs then. Come on!" Robbie yelled, running to a door on the opposite side of the hall. The two men raced up the stairs, flew through the door for the sixth floor and ran to Riley's apartment.

"Riley! Riley!" Will called, banging on the door. "Are you in there?"

Riley was lying on the floor, in some kind of trance, her head to the side, her eyes wide open, staring at the edge of the carpet. The voice was still echoing every now and then. After she'd left a message on Robbie's machine and they didn't come she started to lose hope, almost as though the voice was corrupting her. She didn't even remember lying down, it seemed like she'd been there for an eternity.

But most of it was out of fear. She didn't know who that voice belonged to, but she was scared. She thought Will and Robbie had forgotten about her. She couldn't get out of the apartment. She was dying on her own living room floor.

But, wait, what's this? A quiet sound, so very quiet, and deep, a voice and noise in slow motion... (think the scene in Titanic where Rose is hearing Lowe yell "Is there anyone alive out there!")

"Riley! Are you in there?"

"It's us! It's Will and Robbie! Open up, please!"

"She's not answering us, man," said Robbie, a note of panic in his voice. "What do you think happened to her?"

"I'm going to have to break down the door,"said Will.

Robbie frowned for a moment, remembering that this was the second door in less than two weeks that he'd have to put up, but the frown quickly disappeared as he remembered that his best friend's life could be on the line and he nodded his approval.

"Riley, if you're in there, stand back, I'm going to break down the door!"

"Will..." she whispered. "Will?"

"She's in there!" Robbie yelled. "Riley! We're comin' in for you!"

She stood up and ran to the door. "Hurry, please hurry! There's something in here and it won't let me get out!"

"Keep back!" she heard Robbie yell. Will's going to kick down the door!"

"No... no they can't get in! They won't!"

"Please! Help me! The voice is talking again!"

"ONE! TWO! THREE!"

BANG.

"OWWW!" Will yelled out in pain, the door hardly budged, and he probably fractured his big toe. Robbie started to laugh.

"Will? What happened? Are you all right?" Riley asked."What's going on out there?"

"Our buddy Will here, he - he tried to kick down the -" Robbie broke off, he couldn't hold in his laugh. Will turned around and glared at him.

"I'm fine, Riley," he said through gritted teeth. "Remember, Robbie, I'm an excellent swordsman," he added in an undertone. Robbie quickly stopped laughing.

"We should both try at the same time," Robbie said in an attempt to get Will's mind off his sword. "On the count of three," he said. "One, two - stand back again, Ri, THREE!"

An enormous crash echoed throughout the hall and a cloud of dust engulfed the room and Riley flew out of the apartment and flung herself at Will.

"Oh, god, thank goodness you came! I was so scared! There was something in there, and I was in there waiting for you to come and get me out -"

"Ssh, everything's all right now, we've got you," said Will as he patted her head.

"Where were you two? I thought you were at Robbie's, getting ready?"

"We were," said Robbie, but we were waiting for you. We thought you'd come down and meet us."

"But, I left a message on your machine, I was screaming for help! Why didn't you get it?"

"That was you? You weren't screaming, it was all static..."

"Of course it was me! I... what?" she asked, confused.

"Sounds to me like whatever was in your place messed up the phone line," said Will.

"And since I don't have caller ID..." said Robbie.

"Well, what were you two doing that whole time? Surely it doesn't take you that long to get ready?"

"We told you," said Robbie, we were waiting for you to come down and meet us."

"Well, by the time you came, it was nearly six, and you knew I had to be downtown at that time." She looked at the pair of them. "Robbie, Will, what were you two doing?"

"Ah, um..." said Robbie, guilt written all over his face.

"Will," she said, turning to him, "tell me what you two were doing."

Will looked at Robbie. "You want to take this one, Robbie?"

Robbie raised his eyebrows. "Um, I'd like to use one of my lifelines -"

"ENOUGH WITH THE JOKES!"

"All right, all right, you don't have to yell! Will and I were... well, you know how much I love Ozzy -"

"What?" she said in a dangerously quiet voice. "I could've been locked up in my apartment forever, and you two were listening to Ozzy Osbourne?!"

"Well, you know, Will needs to um... learn about the great music -"

"At least we came and got you," said Will quickly, trying to help spare Robbie from the horrible wraith of the angry Riley.

Well, I suppose you're right..." she started, the frown starting to disappear off her face and the fear was beginning to slowly disappear on Robbie's. But just when he thought he was in the clear she smacked him as hard as she could on the arm.

"OWWWWWW!" he yelled out, whimpering slightly.

"THAT IS WHAT YOU GET FOR BEING STUPID AND NOT REALIZING THAT SOMETHING WAS WRONG!" she yelled. Will started to snigger at Robbie but Riley noticed and advanced now on him. "And you," she said, her face screwed up in anger, but then she smiled and asked kindly, "Is your foot all right?"

Robbie frowned. Will turned his gaze from Riley to Robbie, to grin sarcastically at him, then looked at Riley and said, "It still hurts a little, but I think I'll be all right."

"Which one was it?"

"My left." Riley grinned at his comment and then stood on it to give him a quick kiss.

"My hero," she said, noticing Will was trying to look as though he wasn't in excruciating pain. Robbie grinned at him for payback.

"Come on," Riley said, "I've got an art show that I must attend to."

The two men traipsed behind her, throwing each other dirty looks as they limped out of the complex.

A few minutes later the trio pulled into a parking space outside of The Starry Night, a famous place where the local artists kept their work and then, if it was good enough, went to the museum. It was also a place for parties for the artists, and in tonight's case, that was what it was being used for. The place was named after Van Gogh's famous painting, obviously. But something was strange about it, something didn't seem right...

"Hey, Ri," said Robbie slowly. "Why are we the only ones here?"

"I swear the invitation said for the artists to be here at six! I don't know... maybe, maybe we're the first ones to get here..." She opened her car door to get out but Will grabbed her arm.

"Don't," he said. "There's something wrong here, I know it..."

"Oh don't be stupid, Will," she said lightly, brushing his hand off.

"Wait, Ri, I think he's got a point," said Robbie from the backseat.

"You two are both being silly, nothing is wrong here!"

"Wait! Riley, do you remember the time that I - the scene in that movie that I was in where Jack told Gibbs to "keep to the code?"

"Yes, but what's that have to do with this?"

"The point is that I knew something was fishy about that code, and I was right, wasn't I? In my head, I just knew that one of us wasn't going to get out of that cave. And Jack didn't, and then he -"

"Came back, I know the story, Will! But still, what does this have to do with anything?"

"It's not right!" he said. "I knew something was wrong then, and I know something's wrong now!"

"Listen to him, Ri, I can feel the same thing. Something's not right in that building," said Robbie.

"Hear me out, both of you!" she said out of agitation. "Nothing is wrong in there! We're just the first ones to arrive! And if I'm not mistaken, here comes another car now!"

They turned around. Indeed, there was a limo pulling into the lot. "You see? Riding in style, that's someone who's got to be one of the artists. Now, if you two don't mind, I'm going in, with or without you both." With that, she stepped out of the car. Will and Robbie, forgetting their squabble about the door, exchanged uneasy glances and followed Riley out of the car and inside the building. Just after they walked in, the driver of the limo stepped out, looking at the door to make sure the three weren't coming back out, and then walked over and opened the back door.

"Have they gone in?" asked a British accent. The driver nodded, and the passenger smiled. "Good, very good."

"Anyone here?" Robbie called, just to make sure. The fact that they were alone in here freaked him out a bit, it was such a huge place, so easy to get lost in.

Will looked up at the high, circular ceiling, twenty feet above him, his mouth hanging open in wonder. (A/N: If any of you have ever been to the Capitol Building in Washington D.C., there's that famous ceiling in that one room with the painting on it... I can't remember what the room was called... but think of that.) Their footsteps echoed across the tiled floors, the loudest sound in the desolate place

"Say something," Riley said.

"What?" asked Will.

"If you say something up to the ceiling it will echo you."

"HELLO!" Will said loudly. The ceiling repeated his voice a dozen times, each one quieter than the last. "Hello..." "Hello..." "Hello..."

"Guys, I really don't think this is a good idea -" said Robbie, but Will was having too much fun saying "hello", and Riley was just laughing, completely ignoring Robbie.

Riley's smile vanished suddenly, and she looked the hallway behind them and to the right. "Did you hear that?" she asked. Robbie looked that direction and nodded; something had smashed back there. They weren't the only ones in here anymore.

"HELLO! HELLO! HELLO! HE -" Riley put her hand over Will's mouth to shut him up, his mustachetickling her palm slightly. He gave her an annoyed look. The echos slowly died away, and then a silence fell over them, which was more deafening and not to mention terrifying. Suddenly they heard footsteps, but they weren't their own. Riley's hand was frozen over Will's mouth. He wished she would take it off.

Then, in a hall in front of them, out walked someone. They stopped in the center of the hall, ten yards away from where the trio stood. They smiled, and said, "Hello."

OOOOOOOOOOOO!!! SO EVIL OF ME! MWAHAHA! Next chappy up ASAP! Now... REVIEW! (adds in quieter voice) please?