Annals of Fear II | By : DeathNoteFangirl Category: Death Note > Yaoi-Male/Male > Mello/Matt Views: 5803 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0 |
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"Kiana's Land Rover has gone." Mello commented, a tad unnecessarily, as they stood, peering over the drystone wall, across to the courtyard. Both sets of eyes scoured the landscape, with penetrating gazes. There was no sign of movement, nor a suggestion that anyone, other than themselves, was there. The yew tree bristled in the breeze. "Century?" Beside him, Matt picked out their communicator and inspected it. The red light was not glowing. The whole thing was dead. "He might be inside."
Matt shrugged. "Frankly, I doubt it." They both had wet knees and grubby hands, from their scramble up the embankment with their luggage. "Have you changed your mind at all?"
"Have you?" Mello countered. He was trying to see beyond the manor house, towards the far perimeter wall. "I need to check something."
"Yes," said Matt.
Mello climbed over first, his gun in his hand. He still stopped on the other side, to collect his bag and case, as Matt passed them across. He waited until Matt was at his side. Then the couple skirted the cobbles, keeping to the shadows cast by outhouses and the manor itself. Neither looked into the windows. At the corner, Matt stayed, with the bags and cases, his Beretta poised and ready. Mello dashed the short distance to the stable's south wall and moved stealthily along it to reach the drystone boundary. He hugged its shadows and peeped over the edge, then looked east along the slope. For long seconds, he stood there, searching visually for the brothers, then shook his head. "Gone." He hissed and glanced suspiciously at the house itself. With a sinking feeling he knew that they were going to have to check it, before they could move on to anything more. "Mail," he began, then stopped. There were claw marks on the wall. He could see them now, as a cloud slid from the moon and afforded them more light. He signalled for Matt to wait, then stalked forward to inspect the grooves more closely. They had been done quite recently. No rain had fallen to erase the powdered flecks of pummelled rock. He leaned over again and could see where the turf had been disturbed. A shudder ran through him.
He raced back to his husband. Matt stared at him. "What was there?"
"I made a stupid mistake." Mello informed him, in low tones. "I shouldn't have left them. I should know, right now, where they are. But I don't. That was idiotic."
"You feared that the Gwrach-y-Rhibyn would come, if you zeroed them." Matt replied, steadily. There was no judgment there, just a statement of fact.
"Yes." Mello found his chocolate and bit into it. Through flakes of it, he mumbled, "She might have come anyway. There are marks on the wall. No bodies. I don't fucking know where they are." His gaze raked across the darkness of the manor house, at their backs. It felt like an entity; no longer bricks and mortar, but a living thing. He crossed himself, with his chocolate still in his hand, then pulled out his rosary and kissed it.
"Searching the house?" asked Matt.
Mello nodded. "We don't want anyone to be inside." He shook back his hair. "Especially not Century."
Matt exhaled a short breath, his lips remaining apart. "I'll come too." The Slav just nodded. "They could have just walked back down the mountain." Matt considered it. "Or gone to the farmhouse."
"Baby, I'm sorry." Mello swallowed. "All of that hard work, sorting out the trackers and communicators; all the things that would have worked, had the phenomena remained as they were last time." Mello shook his head. "And here we are in the same position. I'm sorry that your work was for nothing."
Matt chewed the fingertip of his glove. "Stash the cases in an outhouse?"
"No." Mello growled. "I don't trust them to stay put." He gathered up his courage and pushed his chocolate bar between his teeth. He hauled his bag over his shoulder and grasped the handle of his small, metal case. He pushed his gun into its holster, then cupped Matt's bicep. Mello spoke around his chocolate. "Come on."
"Let me get some flares ready."
Mello sighed and waited. He watched the courtyard and the woodland over the wall. He turned to look across the shadowy suggestion of the mountain slope above them. He thought of Nathalie's ghost coming to him in the basement. "Mail, come on." His husband glanced up. "Are you nearly done?"
Matt nodded. The flares were in his hand. Mello crouched to help him shield them against the wind, though the house and outhouses were sheltering them from the full strength. "Mell, we're not going all of the way through the house, are we? Just going as far as the stairs and shouting warnings." Matt gave a half-shrug. "That's all that's needed."
"No." Mello shook his head. "Someone on the third floor wouldn't hear that. We'll go to the foot of the second staircase, at the end of the corridor." He caught sight of Matt's worried expression. "You don't have to come."
"Fuck that."
"Thank you." He shoved his chocolate bar into his pocket and took a lit flare. The flame, at its wick, danced dangerously in the air. "Let's go, before we both chicken out."
Matt frowned. "So you are scared then."
Mello gave him a withering look and started, along the back of the house, towards the back door. His eyes flickered towards the kitchen window, as he passed, and someone, or something, stared straight back from the darkness within. "Boga! Fuck!" Mello gasped, but hurried on by. He didn't take a second look. It occurred to him, belatedly, that it could well have just been his own reflection. Matt was right behind him and quickened his pace to move beyond him. He surveyed Mello with a frightened blinking, behind the orange lenses. He didn't ask, 'what?', but his features held questions that he patently didn't really want answering. "Nothing. Let's do this." Mello barged past Matt again and kicked at the door. It had been ajar, so it swung right against the wall with a loud bang. The passageway lay, semi-moonlit and uninviting, before them. Mello bunched his courage into a fierce ball, held tightly deep inside, and marched right in there. The flare's flame flickered ominously around the walls, creating more shadows than they wanted, but illuminating the way too. Mello yelled, "Is there anyone in this house?" No-one responded, though a sense of alertness, already keen, seemed to sharpen. "You need to know that this house is no longer safe. We mean to..." He rounded the corner, into the kitchen, to find the outline of a figure, standing as a patch of darkness in his path.
Mello froze and stopped. His intake of breath was mirrored by Matt's. The redhead couldn't even see what Mello could see, but he was watching his husband's reactions and stiffened accordingly. They stood. Nobody moving. Mello was desperately attempting to convince himself that this was pareidolia. There was nothing there. No-one standing there. But there was. The shape was just like that which had inspected them earlier on, outside, on the other side of the eastern wall. "Mello." Matt breathed, finally. "Are we running away or going in?"
The figure did not move. At least, it didn't walk away. It shifted its position, as if onto the other indistinct foot, and it moved a hand. It had no eyes. Mello could see the room through its form. But there was a definite knowing that he was being watched. Mello swallowed, wishing he had chocolate instead of a flare. He surprised himself with the strength of his own voice. "Are you Deverill Prothero? Or another victim here?" He heard Matt freeze too. "Sir, you are dead. You do not belong here." He had no way of knowing if this entity was even male. It just felt male, on an instinctual level. "God speed." Mello bowed his head and plunged through, into the room. He didn't pass through it. He didn't even look up to see how close he skirted it. He heard Matt hurrying in his wake and didn't even dare look back, to see if Matt was seeing it too.
They entered the dining room and quickly moved into the parlour. There were the settees and their mattresses, abandoned in August. That seemed like a million years ago. "Mello." Matt sounded icily calm. It was a measure of how frightened he was, that Matt was so cold. "Fuck going upstairs. There's no cars. Century isn't here and if those brothers are, well, fuck 'em."
Mello put down his case and took his chocolate from his pocket. He felt light-headed, with pins and needles tingling all over his face. He snapped off a large strip, while peering at Matt from beneath his blond fringe. The suggestion of the shadow man was in the kitchen doorway. It was sentient. It was following them. Mello felt faint and he covered it with fury, "Who the fuck are you?" He growled. Matt took the last couple of steps to his side and turned to follow his gaze. There was no reaction from the entity. Instinct rang alarm-bells about caution, danger and evil. Mello pushed them down deep inside. He hissed, "Mail, can you see it?"
"Yes."
"Tell me that it's an infrasound induced hallucination." Mello devoured his chocolate.
Matt swallowed. He put down his own case to take a cigarette and to light it on the wildly oscillating flame of his flare. "It's infrasound." Matt exhaled smoke. "And high levels of EMF." His words were blandly delivered. They did not sound convincing, as if not even Matt believed them himself.
"Right." Mello took another strip of chocolate and held this one between his teeth, as he picked up his case again. Matt followed suit.
"Mihael?"
"What?" Mello spoke over the chocolate.
"Smiri se." Matt whispered. It was the Croatian for 'calm down', but Matt had learned that after Mello had embarrassed himself, sobbing for his parents in the middle of the night. It was not something that Mello wished to be reminded about now. Mello charged forward, taking the stairs two at a time. Behind him, aching with his bruises and welts, despite Kiana's ointment, Matt struggled to keep up. He whispered, breathily, "Mello."
Mello had reached the mid-section. He looked back. The shadowy figure was at the foot of the stairs. Mello yelled, "Fuck shit!" Then kicked the wall in front of him. The steel toecaps of his army boots caused a hollow thud and a mark in the paintwork, where it had connected. "Mail, in front of me, please."
"Fuck that." Matt responded. "It's behind us."
Mello glared, strung as tight as a harp. He spoke, impatiently, "Which is why I want you the," His teeth were grit enough to break the chocolate in two. One half fell to the carpet. Mello's voice rose in anger, "fuck in front of me! Now move!"
Matt shook his head. He replied, softly, around his cigarette, "Exactly the reason that I'm behind you. Please carry on up there. It's watching us."
Mello bellowed, "That is a fucking order, Jeevas! Get the fuck in front of me now!" Beside him, Matt flinched and pushed past him. He glanced back to ensure that Mello was following and the couple raced on up the stairs. The corridor felt crowded, but it looked empty. Mello swallowed, coughing to ward off choking, on the remainder of the chocolate. Matt stood with his back to the opposite panelled wall, his gaze traveling up and down the corridor. Neither could shift the sense that the whole house was toying with them. The very air seemed oppressive. Their flames were still moving, even though there was no draft on their faces. Mello stood beside Matt. Nothing could creep up on them, but they were both staring down the stairs. There was no sign of the figure, but the corner of the mid-landing mocked them. At any second, it could come around and they both knew that. The waiting was worse than the actuality, but it didn't happen. The landing remained utterly empty.
"Mihael." Matt whispered eventually. "Volim te, but hurry the fuck up. This house is doing my head in."
Mello took a deep breath, then shouted, "Is there anyone alive in here?"
"You sound like a scene out of fucking 'Titanic'."
Mello cast him an irritated look and called out again, "If anyone is alive in here, you need to know that this house is not safe. We are about to blow half of it up. You have ten minutes from this moment to get out." He glared at the mid-landing, but still nothing appeared upon it. "Mail, come on." He propelled himself away from the wall and set off towards the end of the long corridor. He could hear his own ragged breathing. His ears strained to alert him to anything else. It felt like the house should be a riot of noise, but there was nothing else, except Matt's smoking and their foot-falls on the carpet. "No fucking sense. No fucking sense at all."
Matt asked, over an exhalation of smoke, "What?"
They had reached the doorway of the staircase. Mello shook his head, peering cautiously around it. Moonlight streamed through an upper window. There was an expectant air. Nothing shifted. "I'm not going up there."
"Good."
Mello called up it, his voice turning hoarse. "Is there anyone up there? This is a warning that part of this house will be blown up, in ten minutes' time." He consoled himself with the thought that his voice rasped due to the amount of shouting that he'd done, but he knew that was a lie. It was because he was terrified. "Let's go."
They turned. Every door was open. All along the corridor, every door, into every room, stood open. They hadn't heard it happen, even though this was an old house with all its creaks and stiff hinges. Matt looked stunned. He had been turning every couple of seconds to watch their backs and he hadn't seen it happen. He started running. "Mello, fucking..." But Mello didn't need telling. They fled. They were actually at the mid-landing, before Mello even realised that Matt was now in front of him and therefore between himself and the location of the last shadow man sighting. He opened his mouth to say something, but Matt was already around the corner and gone. Mello rushed around there, seeing Matt on the bottom step, carefully scoping the room with a long look around. It looked empty. It didn't feel empty.
"Anything?"
"Come on." Matt launched himself off the staircase and jogged across the dining room. Above their heads, every door simultaneously shut. They heard it. The sound of it echoed around that house, as if it was an amphitheatre. "Shit." Matt dropped his cigarette and nearly doubled back to get it, but Mello was faster. The Slav stamped on the embers, then careered into his husband, forcing him to keep running, without even checking that the cigarette was fully out. Neither even looked up, as they ran through the kitchen, not wanting to see whatever was there. Matt reached the door first. It was closed. He yanked it open and was partially shocked when it easily allowed their escape.
"Whoa!" Mello gasped, out on the cobblestones. It was a measure of how suffocating the house had seemed, that out here, the atmosphere was markedly lighter. They both kept running, until they were past the yew tree and at the open gate. They were more exposed to the elements here and the wind instantly chilled them both. Matt stopped running, bowing at the waist and panting. "You ok, guapo?"
Matt nodded. "Fuck." He wheezed. "That was intense."
Mello had moved on a few paces. He doubled back and looked to see if they had been followed. His instinct said that they had, but there was nothing there. He half wished that there was. "There's nothing to fucking fight!"
"What?" Matt peered up, beneath his fringe. Both of their flares had gone out in their flight. "Mell, you sure about this?"
Mello stopped dead and stared at him. "About what?"
"Blowing up the outhouses. That's Fenian's theory. I still think that you need to blow up the tunnels. That's where the infrasound is coming from."
"You were all for blowing up the outhouses before." Mello accused.
Matt nodded. "Yeah, but I'm not sure that I'm actually thinking straight. What's your theory?" Their eyes met. Nothing was spoken for long seconds. "You have actually got a theory, Mello?"
"Yes." Mello replied. It looked and sounded like a lie. "Mail, I'm still fucking processing what just happened! Give me a moment, eh?"
Matt bit his lip. "It doesn't normally take you this long."
"Mail." Mello warned, then started to walk away. "Come on. I'll be happier on the track."
Matt tutted, his tone filled with indignation. "Mell, I'm not going all the way down there, just to walk back up again! Yeah, it's freaking weird here, but it's only ten minutes! Less! I don't think there's any fucker in the bastard house anyway."
Mello stopped and turned around. He stalked back again. "You're a lazy cunt." Mello glared. Matt bowed his head. He put his case down and, on the third attempt, lit a cigarette. Mello sighed, already relenting. "Sorry. I'm stressed out." Mello joined Matt, encircling him with his arms. "Te amo, guapo." He kissed Matt's forehead, then, once the cigarette had been removed, snogged him, in comfort and in passion. The kiss went on, until breathlessness parted them. Mello smiled kindly, "You ok, baby?"
Matt gave the briefest nod and took a drag on his cigarette. "I am. You're not. You're still as freaked as you were earlier, when you were sobbing in the farmyard. You've just pushed it under. I can tell that you're bricking it, Mihael. I just wish I was enough to stop that."
Mello shook his head slowly, then bought time with another kiss on Matt's forehead. "I'm fine. Just be glad when this is over."
"I hate that you lie to me."
"Let's not go anywhere which could lead to an argument here. We're both freaked and we're both paranoid." Mello told him. "I do love you and that's what we're going to hold onto right now. Then, after this case is solved, we'll check into a hotel, somewhere neutral, and hash this out. Then we'll go home."
Matt rolled his eyes. "Or we could just go straight home."
"That too."
Matt had already wrapped his own arms around Mello, while they were snogging. He was smoking over Mello's shoulder. "No-one's come out of that house."
"I know."
"Shall we just do it?"
Mello looked uncertain. "Has it even been ten minutes yet?"
Matt grimaced. "Frankly, who cares? Let's just do it, so we can get back to the chalets." He wrinkled up his nose. "And if Fenian's fairy story turns out to be real, against the odds, we can go home. And if it doesn't, we'll come back tomorrow and blow the freaking tunnels. Then go home."
"What do you actually believe, Mail? Right now? Still the infrasound?"
"I believe that I'm freezing my bollocks off." Matt pulled away. He reached up and lifted his goggles onto his head. He looked straight into Mello's eyes. "Can we blow shit up now, Mihael?"
Mello stared. "But you're right. Why are we doing it?"
Matt scowled and pulled his goggles back down. "Give me the case, I'll do it." He threw the remains of his cigarette on the track and stepped on them. Mello shook his head and moved past him, head bowed, looking slightly stunned. "Or whatever."
Mello was considering their strategy until now and he couldn't even follow his own logic. It was easier to say that they were testing Fenian's theory, because otherwise, he would have to conclude that they had no reason. Blowing up the outhouses had been mentioned earlier in the evening and somehow had just become the plan. Mello contemplated those dread times, when the witch bottle had been removed, and recalled the twisting of their minds. He was half way across the cobbles, when his memory dwelt upon those hallucinations, when he'd thought himself in Croatia's war, here in the depths of Wales. "Mail, are we being played?"
"By whom and for what?" Matt was keeping pace with him, worry creasing his features. "Are you going under again?"
Mello bristled. "Fuck off." He strode into the outhouse nearest to the house. It shared a part of a wall with the toilet. The force of his detonation was going to take off the kitchen and all of the rooms above. It would likely cause a fire to gut the remainder. With any luck, it might also expose the standing stone, especially if the coal in the basement ignited. Mello could have guaranteed that, but nothing would force him into that basement, if he could possibly avoid it. Matt lit a flare again. The outhouse was larger than he had imagined. Its depth went away from the house. It was filled with the detritus of gardening, as well as oil cans and rusting articles of metal. Mello knelt on the floor and opened his case. The bombs were already primed. They just needed connecting. This whole operation could take less than a minute. "Ok, Mail, here's the drill. I set them up. We get the fuck over the courtyard and behind the wall, behind the yew tree. I should still be in range to trigger it from there. We keep down. Got it?"
Matt wore a weak smile. "Basic explosive health and safety. Check."
"Work with me on this one, baby." Mello rasped. "Unless you want to find out how it feels to burn." Mello shivered despite himself. This was the wrong time and place to remember that hideout in Los Angeles, on the night when Hell erupted.
Matt's tone softened with compassion. "I know, Mihael." Then, as an afterthought, "Sorry."
Mello nodded and bent over his work. He heard Matt's sniff and shuffle, as he watched the doorway and Mello's back. The bombs were fixed onto the wall, clustered into that corner, where there was the best chance of taking down that half of the house too. He fed the wires through and primed the trigger. "Get ready, Mail."
The voice boomed. Louder than any Earthly voice should be, hollow as the grave, rasping and dry. "Get out!" Mello's heart skipped a beat; he span around, startled, expecting the entity to be there. But it was not. Matt was staring right back at him, his jaw slack, his eyes hidden in shadow. Mello opened his mouth to speak, but Matt got there first. Only it was not Matt's voice. It was the same sinister sound as before, "Get out!" Mello stood, looking for coincidence, trying to ignore the shrieking alarm of all his senses. "Get out!" Matt screamed, but the voice was not his voice and the gaze he gave now, shone through by Mello's flickering flare, did not seem like Matt's eyes. A glinting malevolence bore into him from behind those goggles.
"Mail!" Mello exclaimed, but that was all he said. He hadn't even seen the gun in Matt's hand, before the shots rang out and a searing pain wrenched Mello's gut. He thought nothing at all, as he fell onto the concrete floor, and lay there, motionless and bleeding.
Author's Note: This story is being discussed here: http://mrsjeevas.joharrington.co.uk/forum/viewforum.php?f=11
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