GRANITE

019

CHAPTER NINETEEN
THE FEAR OF FEAR

𖥸┈┈┈𖥸┈┈┈𖥸┈┈┈𖥸

THE GANG HAD ALL FOUND THEIR WAY INTO THE LIVING ROOM FOR THEIR REGULARLY SCHEDULED MOVIE NIGHT —

Desmond sat in his arm chair alone in the corner, Aron and Camren each took places on the couch whilst Liam laid across them, and Eve and Freya built a makeshift bed on the floor just below them to cuddle up together for the scarier parts of the horror flick they'd chosen.

"I want to do something.. spooky," Aron said, his expression bored with each flicker of light from the television.

"What is it with you and 'spooky'?" Desmond quoted with his fingers, "You're literally dead."

"Yeah and?" He replied.

"And, just go eat a human and get it over with." Desmond waved his hand at him, clearly annoyed with Aron's incessant need for activity.

"No, I mean like.. adventurous."

"That's not adventurous?"

"No, I-" Aron made a loud noise of exasperation. "You know what I mean! Something fun!"

"Have any of you been Urban Exploring?" Eve implored, scanning the faces of the men around the room.

"Exploring abandoned places?" Liam questioned.

"Yeah. There's an abandoned hospital about 20 miles away. It's really far out in the country. But it's been there for years and they're just not demolishing it. It's been abandoned for a really long time." She elaborated. Aron's eyes beamed with excitement and anticipation.

"Yes. That's what I'm talking about. Let's go." He immediately began to remove Liam's legs from his lap to stand.

"This sounds like a bad idea.. I'm in," Liam said, lifting himself from the couch.

"You guys can't be serious, right?" Camren asked, his eyes bouncing around the room as the girls had also begun to stand.

"Why wouldn't we be?" Aron asked, grabbing his shoes and beginning to put them on. "Are you guys coming or you gonna stay and watch the snooze fest of a movie?" Camren looked between Freya and Desmond, internally battling on what was the right choice to make. He let out a hefty sigh, reluctantly standing to find his own shoes.

"You're all idiots." Desmond spoke, joining the gang as they prepared to head out.

The hospital was in the neighboring county, on the crest of a large metropolitan city. The only lights to be seen the entire drive over were from the head and tail lights of the cars as they went, the countryside around them blanketed in black. The sky was deep blue, barely illuminated by the moon and kissed with little specks for stars that doubled in quantity only because of their distance from the city.

"Okay, stop here to park." Freya instructed, earning confused looks from the men around her. "The building is abandoned but cops frequent here all the time. Looking exactly for people like us right now and squatters. And I will not be letting y'all get my car towed or put in jail for it." The men around her chorused in laughter.

"That's a good one," Desmond said, like Freya had been warning them about mosquitoes and it was hardly a big deal.

The boys were impatient on their way into the building, wanting to get there and inside as fast as possible. To speed up their "walk" there, Camren had scooped Freya on his back and Eve onto Aron's so they could all sprint to the building's entrance. The building was massive, towering in height above the group. The old red brick had begun to crumble with weeds and ivy was overtaking the sides. The glass in the windows had been shattered and the doors were deteriorating along with their padlocks.