Flashfire

Ch24

"Wait wait wait!"

Caleb moaned. They had been sitting there, pouring over the four videos on Paul's phone, seemingly forever. Liam was, admittedly, driving him a little crazy.

"What?" Caleb said in exasperation, "are you going to point out another tree branch?"

"No, for real," Liam said, "gimme the phone back."

Rolling his eyes, Caleb handed back the phone. Then, he watched curiously as Liam did something. Caleb tried to see what Liam was doing, but instead Liam leaned back into the couch, obscuring his view. After a second, Liam's eyes grew huge.

"What?" Caleb asked excitedly. When Liam did nothing more than bring a hand to his mouth, Caleb became even more excited. "What?"

Now looking horrified, Liam turned the phone. Caleb gasped at the image, the smile disappearing immediately. He recoiled, understanding why Liam had looked the way he had.

"What the fuck is that?"

"I–I d'no."

The image was of some sort of humanoid figure. They were a blur, white and grey. Their features, however, were wrong. The eyes were completely obscure, two black holes staring vacantly at the camera. The mouth, equally black, was opened wide, twisted into an abnormally large gape. Whatever it was looked to be in pain, or perhaps even fear; deep shadows played on the wrinkles of its brow, the curves of its mouth, making it look like something out of a horror movie.

"I saw it in the background," Liam whispered. "It's there for a split second, before Paul screams and starts to run away. It's right by the railroad tracks."

"It has to be light," Caleb reasoned, even though his voice didn't even believe itself. "Like, maybe–maybe the headlights from our car, or–or Paul kept saying he thought he saw something–"

"Caleb–"

"Yeah, he thought he saw an animal, so–so maybe–maybe it's like, a dog or something–"

"That's not a fucking dog, Caleb!"

Caleb slammed his mouth shut.

"That–that looks like a person!" Liam said in disbelief.

"I've never seen a person like that," Caleb replied, his voice shaking a little bit. "What the fuck is going on?" Caleb said angrily then. He got to his feet and began to pace.

After a few moments, Liam got to his feet as well. "What did you do?"

Caleb spun around. "What did I do?"

"What if you summoning me didn't only bring me back?" Liam downright squeaked, unable to mask his fear and panic. "What if that's a demon, or–or–"

Caleb grabbed the backpack off the table, shoving its contents back into it. Wordlessly he strode to the door.

"Hey!" Liam snapped. "Where are you going?"

"Stay here." Caleb glanced at Liam over his shoulder. "I'm going to go pay Paul a visit."

Without allowing Liam to reply, he left.

~

"Oh hey Cale–oof!"

Caleb roughly shoved Paul's backpack against his chest. Stumbling backward from the unexpected impact, Paul looked immediately guilty and panicked. "My–my backpack?"

"Let me in, Paul. We have some things to discuss."

Paul's mouth opened and closed a few times.

"Now," Caleb growled.