Darkhouse (Experiment in Terror 1)

He folded his hands neatly in front of him and put on a very sweet smile.

“Would you mind getting me a piece of pie?” He raised his brows, the wide-eyed manic look coming into his eyes.

I tried not to roll my own eyes and got up. I opened the fridge, bent over and pulled out the pie and a bottle of milk. I waved it at him.

“Want a glass of milk, too?” I asked scornfully.

He was staring at my ass. At least that’s what it looked like. I guess when it’s the biggest thing in the room, it must be hard not to stare at it.

I waited for him to look up. He eventually did and gave me a bright, innocent flash of straight teeth.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Were you staring at my ass?”

“Yes,” he replied without hesitation. His eyes were round and crazy. Or playful, if you wanted to use a polite term for crazy.

I shook my head. I put the milk back in the fridge, without bending over this time, got out a fork and put a pie slice in front of him. I could feel the flames creeping up my neck and onto my cheeks.

He didn’t seem bothered by it.

“Obviously, I’ll need a napkin too,” he said matter-of-factly.

“Obviously,” I muttered, as I walked over to the drawer and tossed a napkin in front of him. I sat back down across from him and eyed him warily.

He folded it neatly a few times and then put it into his shirt pocket so it stuck out like a handkerchief. Then he dug into his pie, finishing it off in a few mouthfuls. He pushed his plate away and wiped his mouth with the back of hand, apparently forgetting about his napkin.

He noticed me. I guess I was staring again. He’d better get used to it though, it was hard not to when he was acting so...oh God, so many adjectives to use here.

“You’re not having anything?” He pointed at me with the fork.

“I don’t like pie,” I said feebly. That wasn’t true, but I don’t know why I lied.

“You don’t like pie? What kind of person doesn’t like pie?” He laughed. He reached forward and actually poked me in the arm with the fork. Lightly, but still. “You can’t be trusted.”

I instinctively batted the fork away from me. “You’re the one with the fork.”

He opened up my hand and placed the fork in it. “Now you have the fork.”

He sat back in his chair, looked down at his writing and thoughtfully scratched his sideburns. And just like that, it was—

“I just want you to enjoy the pies in life, Perry,” he shot in. “That’s all.”

“I enjoy...pies,” I managed to say. I wasn’t about to charm him with my wit, that’s for sure.

“Pies are a metaphor,” he said quickly. He exhaled.

Then slammed his fist down on the table. The pie plate jumped. I jumped. I’m pretty sure the twins in the other room jumped.

“All right, enough lollygagging,” he barked. “Let’s have a concrete plan of action for tonight. As much I love to fly by the seat of my pants and shit everywhere, I don’t think we can afford to do that this time. Maybe next time. Sound good?”

“Oh God, whatever,” I uttered under my breath.

“That’s the spirit,” he mused and started scribbling furiously on the paper. I soon realized he was drawing a detailed layout of the lighthouse.

“Now there were four levels, right?”

I couldn’t remember. “I don’t know. How far did you make it before I showed up?”

“Not to the top.” He finished the sketch and jabbed at the tower with the pen. “We’ll be going up there tonight.”

So much for having enough “events” to keep us in the safer downstairs levels.

He pointed to the house part of the building. “We’ll also hit up the second floor here now that we have the key. And I’d like to get you back into that bedroom again.”

I felt sick at that idea, remembering what Uncle Al had told me about the dead woman tied to the bed with kelp.

“I’ll try,” I said. “But I’m not going to do anything stupid. Got that?”

Dex gave me a quick smile. “Sure.”

It wasn’t very reassuring. I wondered if that was one of his lies.

We went on to discuss what equipment we would be bringing, what I should say to the camera and where the start and finish rooms were.

“We should probably have a safety word too,” he said.

“A safety word? Like in S&M?”

His eyes flashed, animated and bright. “The safety word is ‘Jell-O’.”

God help me if I ever had to say “Jell-O” for any reason.

I gave him a wry smile but his eyes were focused past me on the living room. I turned my head to see Matt and Tony standing there, whispering stuff into each other’s ears and giving us the stare down.

“Can we help you?” Dex asked.

“What’s up, boys?” I added in a more lighthearted tone.

The twins exchanged a quick glance before Matt came forward, eyeing Dex with trepidation.

“Uh, we, um, have kind of been listening to you guys and well…”

“We want to help,” Tony spoke up and joined his brother by his side.

“Okaaay,” I said slowly.

“We live here. It’s our lighthouse,” Tony went on, crossing his arms defiantly.

Matt rolled his eyes. “We just think we could help you. For your TV series, internet, whatever it is.”

“And how is that?” Dex asked in a school-teacher voice.

Another quick glance between the twins. I could tell Tony wanted to shoot his mouth off, but Matt pulled up a chair and sat down. He looked at Dex for acknowledgement but faced me to lay it all out. Good cop, bad cop.

“Perry, you know Whiz?”

How could I forget?

“Well,” he continued, “he has a small boat up by Nehalem Bay. We were going to go up there later today anyway to…well, do stuff. So, I was thinking we could take you out on the water. You know, so you guys could get some good shots of the lighthouse from that angle.”

The idea of going out on a boat, especially in crappy weather, was not at all appealing but I could see Dex was starting to give it serious thought. It’s like Matt knew the magic phrase was “good shots.” Seemed the way to Dex’s heart was anything that would help his filmmaking.

That, and pie.

Dex looked down at the drawings and then out the window at the grey sky. I waited for him to say something. We all did.

Finally he looked back at Matt and shrugged. “Sure, if you think it’s a good idea.”

He wanted to appear nonchalant, but I could tell he was probably kicking himself inside for not suggesting it in the first place. I guess some different shots and points of view really would add some variety to the way we’ve been doing things, and I know the twins had been feeling a bit left out during this ordeal which did happen to be on their property. Still, I felt uneasy about it. That was nothing new at this point—I was feeling uneasy just talking about pie—but going out on the water, with Whiz at the wheel no less, just seemed like some sort of accident waiting to happen.

Matt and Tony gave each matching grins. Tony laughed. “Good thing, cuz we already told Whiz about it. He’s waiting for us at the dock.”

Now it was time for Dex and me to exchange an uneasy glance. Figures we’d have the wool pulled over our eyes by them.

Uncle Al had stepped out for a bit, which was probably for the best. Despite having a thirty two-year-old, a twenty-two year-old and two nineteen-year-olds making their own decisions, I know he wouldn’t be too happy to hear we’d be going out boating, and with “The Whiz” no less.

We quickly got the equipment ready, plus found a few extra plastic bags and ponchos for emergencies in case the rain started to pick up again (inevitable), and headed to the twins’ truck.

Dex and I got into the narrow back seat, which for some reason had a crab trap taking up half of it. I didn’t know what the point of having a truck was if you weren’t going to keep things in the canopy part of it but now was not the time to question the twins on anything. Unfortunately, this meant that I had to practically sit on Dex’s lap.

OK, maybe it wasn’t that unfortunate. The seats themselves were damp and a bit moldy, whereas Dex’s leg was firm and warm. Did I mention firm? And warm?

Still, I couldn’t help but give him a quick, embarrassed smile for not only having the weight of one ass cheek and one thigh on top of him, but for being so close to him. I was literally right up there in his face.

“Sorry,” I said, my voice lowered. Because my lips were only inches from his, the last thing I wanted to do was breathe my stinky breath all over him.

He smirked, maybe thinking the same thing. Meanwhile I was aware that the twins were staring at us from the front.

“Yeah, sorry about the crab trap there,” Matt said, eyeing us in the rearview mirror. “We didn’t want to get it wet.”

No point even trying to figure that out. I just gave them a well-placed eye roll and we were on our way.

Of course, the road was a bit bumpy coming out of the driveway and I was instantly aware again of A) how much I weighed and B) how much my boobs jostled when they hit a pothole. I swear, they almost took Dex out at one point. I had to bite my lip hard to stop myself from laughing about it and avoided looking directly at him, as if he was a solar eclipse.

After twenty minutes of being way too aware of Dex’s body beneath me and his hot breath at the nape of my neck, and being subjected to nonstop Nickleback courtesy of the twin’s God-awful CD player, we finally rolled into a shoddy-looking marina littered with half-abandoned fishing trawlers and stacks of rotting crates.

We piled out of the truck and into the air, which was colder and wetter up here. Whiz sauntered over to us, looking every bit the punk that I remembered from a week ago: a scruffy face, fraying hoodie, and sleazy eyes. Actually, in the daylight, he looked older, too, which didn’t bode well considering he made out with my fifteen-year-old sister.

He greeted the twins like they were all from the same hood in Compton and gave Dex and me the head nod.

“What up, ghost hunters?” he said. “Ready to get fucked up?”

“Uh,” I said, looking up at Dex. I could see Whiz was going to grate on his nerves in two seconds flat.

“We’ll get fucked up later,” Matt said, and gestured to the boat. “How about we take the boat out first?”

“Sounds sensible.” Whiz laughed and took a mickey of rum out of his front pocket. He took a swig and winked at Dex and me. “It’s my right as a pirate.”

He walked off to the docks with the boys following close behind. I shook my head and muttered, “Can’t believe he made out with my sister.”

Dex laughed. “That fuckwit made out with your sister? Isn’t she in high school?”

I sighed. “Yes, she is.”

He smirked at that. “I know you ladies like the bad boys and all...”

I chuckled, maybe too hard. “I don’t!”

He raised his brow at me, the ring catching the weak light.

“Good to hear,” he said with a sly grin, and started after the boys.