Chapter Two

"All I'm saying is that you need to be more open minded about these things….."Johnny hissed quietly, jumping out of the squad and pushing the door closed with an irritated shove. His voice increased in volume as he realized the engine was not in the bay. "I'm telling you, Roy, there was something in that house besides the Teals."

Roy shook his head but kept moving towards the inviting call of sleep; there was no way that he was going to respond to his partner's fanciful imagination that seemed to have grown in equal proportion to the miles they had traveled from the couple's house to the station. He had to admit that the hair on the back of his neck had been standing up when he had made his search of the downstairs, but other than telling Johnny that he had had a funny feeling while in the supposedly haunted house, he was not about to add fuel to the fire John was stoking by feeding him that little tidbit of information. He was sure that four hours from now when the wake up tones sounded, the whole run would simply fall into the category of weird responses and be soon forgotten.

"Good night Johnny…" he paused in the doorway to deliver the only words of encouragement that he was going to give his wide eyed colleague, who had caught up to him and was several feet behind him. Johnny glared at him and yanked off his blue jacket, keeping his mouth closed but showing his displeasure in his jerky movements. Roy sighed and continued on to his bunk, unzipping his own jacket as he moved and pulling it off. He tossed it on the end of the bed and worked his suspenders off his shoulders. He made short work of pulling off his bunker pants and readying them over his boots; he crawled into bed, welcoming the feel of the cool sheets against his bare legs.

He started to roll onto his side with his back facing Gage, but thought better of it and remained on his back, his head slightly towards the other's bed so that he could keep an watchful eye on his young colleague. He might not want to hear any of John's wild speculations right now, but that didn't mean he was indifferent. Working together for over a year now, Roy was pretty sure that he could decipher most of his moods, but this time…. Johnny could be rather high strung at times or have rather odd reactions to some of their runs, but this time he was curiously different. Almost as if he wasn't sure of how to process or respond to the hysterical antics of the delusional Dorothy Teal, or maybe he had just unwittingly allowed himself to be drawn into her paranormal flight of fancy.

Whatever the case, Roy felt his concern deepening as he observed the dark haired man divest himself of his gear, his movements slow and deliberate. His eyes kept darting about the room as if searching for something or someone, and before he finally crawled under the covers his whole body shivered, almost as if, well, someone had walked over his grave. Roy's eyebrows shot up as the saying shot into his mind, one of those weird observances that his mom liked to use and made absolutely no sense.

The paramedic closed his eyes and heaving a disgusted sigh, flipped over onto his side. Now he was starting to think like Chet, buying into superstitions and feeding his own imagination by trying to analyze his partner's jittery movements. Plain and simple -they were both tired, had watched a scary, old movie before hitting the sack the first time, and had consumed multiple cups of coffee. Plus that first call to the Teal house involving that séance had just been plain freaky; that had probably been when their imaginations had kicked into overdrive. It was time to wind down the spectral mental imagery and let the soothing scenes of everyday life into his subconscious.

Easier said than done, he realized several moments later as he caught himself straining to hear any abnormal sounds, eyes wide open and staring at the brick partition. There were no sounds coming from Johnny's direction at all; either he had succumbed to sleep or was lying awake staring at his wall or the ceiling. Roy grabbed his sheet and blanket and pulled them up to his ears, squeezing his eyes shut and wondering if sheep counting would get him anywhere.

A thousand sheep later and his body had relaxed somewhat, sinking into the mattress slightly. The sound of the apparatus bay door going up jolted him wide awake once again; he rolled to his back and listened to the normal sounds of the engine and its crew following their routines. Since at least three of the four men shuffled quietly into the dorm room and didn't head straight for the showers, it must have been something that didn't involve smoke or had been a false alarm. The rustlings and whispers gradually faded to silence as the firefighters settled into their beds; the missing man came from the direction of the locker room and quickly shucked off his turnouts and dropped onto his bed. Marco, Roy thought with a small smile, as the distinctive odor of Old Spice wafted his way as the lineman tried to get comfortable.

An encompassing quiet crept through the fire house. Even the irritating sound of crickets plying their music, or the muted sounds of the traffic flying by on the 405 seemed oddly lacking. Roy gritted his teeth and waited, in vain, for the normal human noises that came from six men sharing a small space. But even Mike Stoker, who was reserved during the day but made up for it at night with his ear splitting snores, remained uncharacteristically mute. Roy opened his eyes once again and lifted himself onto his elbows, glancing about the room. Everything seemed in its place, and there were no unexpected visitors lurking in the corners.

Imagination was certainly a powerful thing, and even though Johnny hadn't spelled out what he thought was in that house with them, all kinds of bizarre figures were cascading through Roy's mind. He was going to throttle that paranoid partner of his, for Gage was sleeping quite peacefully in his usual position, left arm thrown up over his face covering one eye. DeSoto debated about getting up and seeking refuge in the day room; the steadfast ticking of the battery operated clock on the wall above Kelly's head caught his attention and he focused in on the annoying, but comforting sound. He dropped back onto the bed and slowly closed his eyes, willing himself to breathe deep and clear his jumping thoughts…

Until a thump startled him awake and he bolted upright, hands wildly clutching at his covers. He blinked rapidly to clear his fuzzy vision and dropped the covers from his nerveless fingers as he located the source of the unnatural noise. His previously "sleeping like a baby" colleague was lying between their bunks on his back, his jaw working but no intelligible sounds emitting from it.

Roy pushed back the covers and swung his legs down, careful not to step on the prone figure. He leaned down and placed a hand on Gage's shoulder, noting the fine tremor that ran through him when he touched him.

"Johnny! You ok?" He whispered, trying not to emit impatience when an answer didn't seem to be forthcoming. "How the hell did you fall out of bed?"

Johnny stared up at him, swallowing hard and making a visible effort to collect himself. "I uh….yeah, ok, I'm ok…didn't fall…"

"How then?" Roy's voice rose a little in exasperation and he felt like a child being scolded by a teacher; he had fight down the instinctive reaction of clapping a hand over his mouth to shush himself, as well as fighting the urge to shake his confused and irritatingly vague friend.

"She, the sister, Alice, she pushed me…again."

~TBC~