#tzus

He was in a strange, probably haunted, warehouse, alone, scared, and more than likely close to death. “Make a YouTube channel!” they said, “It'll be an easy distraction!” they said.

What they had not said was that a ghost hunting channel was not the best idea for someone scared of ghosts.

The concrete clicked quietly under his shoes, and his flashlight, true to its name, flashed on and off- low battery. He glanced carefully around. The large, grey space around him hummed with the echoes of his footsteps.

The click of the camera sounded very similar to his shoes.

“Uh, hey everyone, welcome to the first episode of Ayap-Ghost’s ghost hunting shown!” whether it was nervousness or excitement in his voice, it could all be edited out somewhat, or if not, played as a joke. “If you don't know this warehouse, then you don't live near me. This place was built during the industrial revolution, and abandoned in the great depression, like so many of its kind around the country. What makes this place different is people never stopped seeing workers in it's windows-” he paused to pan around the place, finally settling the camera on a doorway. “Particularly a second story window- and there's the stairs.”

Andy flipped off the camera, and stood in place for a moment, catching his breath. Once his monologue stopped, you could hear it bouncing about the unmoving stone walls.

----

The stairway wasn't too torturous, but it nonetheless gave Andy more time to worry. Even if this place wasn't haunted, it was probably overrun with animals that would be able to kill him, or poison plants, like the one outside (poison ivy was nothing to laugh at OK! He hadn't even been able to rid himself of a leaf under his beanie and he wasn't sure if he was going to die because of it! So much for a YouTube career…)

He took stock of his surroundings. The second floor wasn't too different from the first. Largely empty, big stone walls, the like. There was, however, one difference. Besides the windows, some spare machinery was stuffed into a corner, not too far from the stairwell, along with some cloth. It looked like something you could make a human shape out of, to leave by the window for a night and scared some kids.

Andy flipped the camera back on.

“So this is the fabled second story of the warehouse,” he flinged his arms out, gesturing to the wide space, purposely avoiding the pile of machines and cloth. That was for later. “Let's take a look at the windows!”

Keeping the camera as steady as he possibly could, he strode to the third window from the stairwell. It was especially decrepit, looking as if it was pelted with stones from outside, missing more of the foggy glass panes that blocked out the world than any of the other windows.

“People have reported that a figure stands here sometimes, at night when cars drive by on the way home from work or school. Whoever- or whatever- they are, they stand and watch.” he turned the camera on himself- “and as a college kid, i gotta say, mood.” he punctuated by zooming in on himself. 

As he rambled on about the industrial revolution, he didn't notice the cloth shifting.

----

Bee hadn’t had the best day

First, she didn't manage to get much sleep. (Yes, bee is a ghost. Yes, she sleeps. We exist.) second, some cops managed to get inside during the day, and she hadn't gotten to set up her creepy little window decor. Third, some kid with leave on his head (???) had stomped up to her house and started talking about the industrial revolution to seemingly no one.

So she decided to have some fun scaring the kid.

She knew how to do this. She had been a ghost for some time already. She knew a good scare has some anticipation before it, and it also gave her a moment to observe the person she was scaring. Bee shifted in her little fort, made of whatever she could find handy, trying to get a better look. 

He was wearing a strange, if nice, outfit. Overalls, rainbow button up, and a beanie, with a few leaves of what looked like poison ivy lodged in the front. And...oh, how lucky was she! That was a camera, snug in leaf boys hand, being waved about to show off the “terrifying” warehouse.

This was going to be so much fun!

----

The video was going better than expected. A few scares he could chock up to and animal or the drafty, windowless, empty place, but still jump at. (For the video, of course.) he was in the fourth story now, and it was getting dark. All the better for a scary ghost hunting video.

Andy had just gotten up however, when he felt the air change around him. Maybe it was the wind, or maybe the lack of windows on the floor, but everything was colder and darker.

He flipped on the camera, this time without as plan for what to say. Only the knowledge that something was going to happen.

“Hello?” his voice shook, for real this time.

There was more stuff on this floor, machines nobody had bothered to pack up or steal, obscured by darkness, more old cloth nobody needed anymore. It was the wind moving it though. No doubt about that.

He walked a few steps forward and the click of his shoes felt louder than before (there was probably some architecture reason that stuff was louder the higher up you got, right? Right?) He flicked on his flashlight, carefully guiding it along across the room and following with his camera. There was a clear path through the defunct stuff, leading deeper into the large room. He lingered his flashlight on it to see if anything popped out to scare him, then walked, as confidently as he could, toward the path.

Andy couldn't see the end of the winding road, more reason not go inside. He still would, though. For the views!

Still holding a camera in trembling hands, he turned a corner, then another. And then more. Before long, he was deep in this maze of sewing machines and half-finished clothes. Every few corners he heard some new noise, or bumped into something he wasn't expecting. These animals were getting bold.

And then he turned the very last corner.

----

This had, indeed, been fun.

Watching this kid tiptoe about here was incredibly entertaining, more so because she kept moving stuff around to trip him or scare him. On the third floor, almost threw a brick at him, but just threw it at his feet instead. He yelped like a baby.

Bee was enjoying herself by the time he got to the maze.

She’d made it herself, in her spare time. On slow days, when nobody wanted to be scared of her window thing, she entertained herself by making a path way through the fourth floor, where nobody had moved anything out. Full of whatever spooky things she could find to torment whoever got into it, she had run through how she would scare her unlucky guest at least 50 times.

What? Everyone needs a hobby, after all.

First, they get tired from walking all the way up the stairs. Then, they walked through the maze, full of frights, and finally, they got to a wall, perfect to jump out of. Bee had practiced making herself as scary as she could in whatever glass she could find at the old factory, stuff like sharpened teeth, a crack in her iconic mask, revealing eyes upon eyes upon eyes, and some probably-blood along her sweatshirt made her a formidable movie ghost.

She was getting distracted. The kid, Andy, was getting close to her wall.

She waited a moment, clawing her hands along the stone to make a nice noise, for Andy to walked all the way up to her and then…

He was still holding his camera, ok, showtime.

Bee lunged out of the wall, shrieking with a practiced voice, clawing with all her might at him. She was careful not to hurt the camera, but her efforts seemed to work. The poor kid was screaming his head off before she was all the way out of the wall, and bolted down the corridor he’d just come down.

Once she was sure he was out of earshot, she slid through the wall all the way, and yawned.

Today had been fun.

~~~~~~~~~~~~