Episode 8: Death of a friend

The next morning, a sight of terror lay in wait for them. One by one, they take the stairs to the downstairs lobby, in search of Newman Heights' bellboy. They round the corner in silence, Macy drops to her knees and Jiro hides trembling behind Akira.

The residents, heartbroken, by the scene drawn out before them. The young boy of twenty-two, orange locks that would bounce off his forehead stained red in blood. His head hung on his chest, arms spread eagle, crucified almost against the wall behind him. Odd, both legs had been nailed together on one side. The slanted cross position, Jr. Peter Pilloweather's body contorted and made the resident's nauseous at the pain. Sadness, of the pain a fellow friend had succumbed to.

...

"Boo!" a girl sneaked up from behind his desk and yelled. Her arms waved about in the air, "Woooo" she mimicked a ghost sound.

When she got no reaction out of him, her knowledge of his 'weak spots' she poked and tickled his back.

"Seriously, Macy, quit it!" cackling, the young man whined. Turning around to face her. He tugged at his green blazer, fixing creases in it.

"I told you, you should let me iron it out for you," an exasperated sigh as she helped pat him down.

"Ye and I told you to stop acting like my wife, cheeky brat" he retorted and stuck out his tongue. Facing back, he continued his typing on the desktop.

"Keep doing that Peter and I'll bite it, I swear" Macy growls, and he gasps, feigning fear.

"Don't you have school or anything?" quizzical eyeing at the screen.

"Not really, probably a school holiday or something" she answers and, props herself up and sits on the brown desk.

"Or something, you don't know? I hope your dad yells at you for that" he scoffs.

Leaning against the box computer and resting on it with her arms. Macy's reach's for his curls puffed against his forehead and twirls it in between her fingers. An orange gold fluff, entertaining her but distracting him. The creaking of the front door, startles them both and her father makes his way inside.

He trots past, red-eyes and swollen cheeks, not noticing either of them. She makes a move to go after him, but Peter's grip on her arm tightens.

Her father's state, a common occurrence, as after working hours he dined at a local Welsh pub near his flat.

"Don't," he mouths, and she nods, slightly teary eyed.

"Also, haven't I warned you not call me 'Peter'" pinching her cheeks.

"But that's your name," she pouts and attempts to bite down on his finger.

"Ye, but only when my Pa passes, till then I'm..." the memory fades.

...

"Junior!" Fitz screams. Her face red, gasping in between heaving breaths.

"NO!" hiccuping, and trembling against Eliza who's pulling her away from touching his bloodstained nailed feet.

"Guys, help!" Eliza's pleas to the stunned residents, gripping at her waist as she forcibly tries to make her way to his body.

"GET HIM DOWN!" an ear-piercing screech.

"Pillow- San," Jiro whimpers while Colchester holds him up in his arms. Akira rushes to help Eliza with Fitz as it seems she's reaching closer to Junior.

On cue, Akira grips her shoulders; a figure of Mr. Fitzgerald appears and intervenes.

"Macy, it's okay" he tells her and picks her up, escorting her up to her room.

"Daddy," she sniffles in his shoulder as he princess carries her up the stairs.

"Thanks," Akira calls after him, but to no avail.

They all stare back, terrified of how they need to now think of a way to get him down and later bury him.

"Akira, I think you should take Jiro upstairs and we'll take care of the rest" Colchester hands over, a trembling Jiro. He walks off, leaving the residents behind.

"Kacey," a whisper beckons her upstairs. As a means for a distraction, she unsteadily sneaks away up to her room.

"Eliza!" Mandisa holds her back as she lurches forward, nauseated and throwing up.

"I don't think I can-" with tear filled eyes, the remaining two suggest she go up to her room to rest. They will take care of the rest.

"I'm going to look for a stepladder," Colchester informs her and disappears to the front door.

Upon his return with a creaky wood ladder in hand, he eyes Mandisa holding Junior in her arms. "How did you-" he queries, but shakes off his curiosity and walks over to her. Setting down the ladder to one side, he picks up Junior from her arms.

They walk outside to the mist filled garden at the back of the mansion, in silence they grabbed shovels and dug a shallow grave.

"I think that's enough," Mandisa informs him.

"You're right, it's getting dark pretty quick" looking up to now eerie night sky.

"Wasn't it morning a couple of minutes ago" he notices, after carefully placing Junior's body inside the grave. They looked down at his green uniform intact though red blotches splatter against. His usual blushed face, now grey and lifeless.

"Your things from your car," he mentions, filling the silence.

"I uh- got them already"

"I see" he deadpans.

They finished the burial by placing the two remaining red roses in the garden and went inside.

"It was morning roughly ten minutes ago" Mandisa informs Colchester in the kitchen. She occupies herself, washing off her hands, and he answers from behind her.

"Then why's it night already?" and she startles back, knocking the back of her head against his chin.

"Mandisa," he starts off, closer to her ear.

"What's going on?"

They jump back, jolted by the sound of knock on metal above them. Looking up and met with silence.

"You have any ideas about that?" still pressed up against her.

"Back then-" he attempts to press her further for answers though Kacey voice interjects his interrogating.

"Guys!" Kacey rushes down the stairs, panting, hair disheveled and dust covered book in hand. She peers through the kitchen door and eyes them.

"Am I interrupting?" a cheeky grin.

"No."

They coldly cut off any thoughts she had and separated to other sides of the centered aisle.

"So I found this book, but like I need all of us to read it" cheerily telling them.

The remaining residents, scattered around the mansion in their rooms. Eliza curled up in a ball, shrouded in darkness, on her bed. Akira and Jiro bathing in theirs. Macy fighting off her father.

"@$∆%&+^$#@/" a man announces.

"What?" Kacey mid-storytelling answers.

"What's wrong?" Colchester asks.

"I heard something or someone," she tells him, looking around to where the voice came from.

"We should go," Mandisa rushes past them and out the kitchen.

"Mandisa, where are you going?" she follows after.

Colchester decides to go after them, though halted by the creaking metal from above, once more. The sound of the air duct above him taking strain. He turns around to the figure of a girl who fell through the metal.

The night of the sleepover, the resident's new guest joined them for a night of fun. Each of them sat in a circle in the middle of Kacey's room. They eyed each other, unsure of how to go about on regular 'sleepover antics'.

"So, what did you do before you came to her Kace?" Fitz queries while comping on mini chocolate chip cupcakes.

"In varsity studying journalism, in my last year actually," Kacey replied and on a sombre note added, "I was staying in the dorms, moved out after the accident, and moved into my home which eventually got evicted."

The atmosphere took a turn for despair as they listed their life's happenings before moving into Newman Heights.

"Running away from my hometown," Colchester flatly states, and Eliza agrees, "Same here."

"Trying to start over with my father," Fitz and Mandisa chimes in a silvery tone after her, "Starting over."

"Your voice recovered pretty quick after that night," Akira informs Kacey, and sips on a bottle of ginger beer.

"My voice?" Kacey with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah, after that screaming contest between you and Jiro, though you sure took the cake," He chuckles and takes another swig.

Looking at them, confused, "I didn't scream," she assures, and Akira gasps and coughs from the potent drink going down his wind pipe.

"We heard you from behind the door, before it was blasted open," Colchester, his voice slightly unnerved, "And when we went inside you couldn't speak and that's why I brought you tea," Eliza concludes.

Kacey searches around the room at them, "My voice was like that because of the sleep paralysis, some of my fingers and toes still felt numb too. I thought you guys knew that," she explains and the room falls silent.