Two hours.
That was how long they’d have to wait for the tow truck to arrive. Colby convinced himself he could last two hours sitting at Georgia’s dinner table, eating the meal she made (which was pretty damn good) if he just focused on the positive. On the cool architecture, the cozy ambience of the log crackling in the fireplace, expensive tapestries, Hawaiian steel guitar music playing from some hidden source, and strange but interesting artifacts all over the house.
It wasn’t what they could see about the house that felt unnerving, it was what they couldn’t. The feeling of somebody watching them, even now while having casual dinner, unsettled him. Was this house haunted, or was the last day’s stress getting to him?
Colby polished off his plate, downed two different desserts, one with strawberries and another with chocolate and peanut butter, both made by Georgia. Witch or no witch, Georgia could cook, and thankfully the food wasn’t made from children who’d gotten lost in the woods. And if it was, well, then, children were delicious.
Soon, the questions came, the usual ones people asked after they’d gained enough confidence to ask. How did YouTube work? How did they make money from that? Were their online personas true to their real personalities, or were they acting? Georgia’s curiosity about their careers had been piqued, and as well-fed, trapped guests, they had no choice but to answer.
Colby wiped his mouth with a cloth napkin. “That’s the real us. For the most part. We’re goofy, weird, nerdy, but that’s what our followers love about us, that we’re genuine with them.”
Georgia nodded with interest. “I love that,” she said. “What they see is what they get.”
“Exactly.” Colby looked at Sam to let him know it was his turn to deal with Georgia.
Sam picked up the cue and nodded. Their duo interview, which they’d been perfecting for the last year, was flawless. “But there’s a lot of work involved, too,” Sam added. “We spend hours a day editing our videos, answering fan messages, stuff the public might take for granted.”
Georgia polished off what had to be her fourth glass of wine. Any moment now, she’d be levitating. “I see. And has living in L.A. given you boys the chance to network? Meet any Hollywood directors? Because I can see that being the next, natural step—making movies.”
“Not yet, but we’re getting there, a little bit at a time,” Sam replied, checking the time on his phone. Only forty-five minutes had gone by.
“Have you met Francis Ford Coppola or Jordan Peele?” Her eyebrows raised.
Colby’s ears perked up. Jordan Peele’s Get Out was one of his favorite horror movies of all time. The slow-burning dread, the social commentary… “No, we wish.”
“Oh, well they’re personal friends of mine. Somewhere there’s a photo of me in this very house with both of them,” Georgia said proudly. “I’ll see if I can find it for you.”
Whoa, what? She knew Jordan Peele personally? And Francis Ford Coppola was a big name, too. Maybe coming back to the Belle Estate a third time had been written in the stars, a sign from the universe trying to hook them up with more success. Maybe they should give Georgia more of a chance, since she had so many connections. Always look at the silver lining, right?
“That’s so dope. You should get them to produce one of your screenplays,” Colby pointed out the obvious, glancing at the mile-high stack of scripts Trey had created on the hutch, giving them the space for dinner.
“It doesn’t work that way,” Trey replied sourly. “You don’t just call your director friends and ask them to direct your script. You still have to provide a clean, well-written screenplay. That’s what I’m here for.”
“Oh. My bad,” Colby threw Trey back attitude. I thought you were here because you’re a chump.
For a minute, everyone sat around without talking, half-basking in the food coma and half awkwardly not knowing what to say. It was when Georgia, ever the hostess, came up with new questions to ask Alex this time about what he was studying in college that Colby started to feel a little off. The room felt wobbly, not vertigo where the room spun, but more like there were two of everybody at the table.
Two Sams stared at him oddly.
Two Alexes talked about the financial degrees they were seeking and how much time it would take them to complete. Colby sat in a stupor, watching as the previously empty seats now had people sitting in them. Where had they come from?
One looked like Georgia’s late husband Clint, who threw his head back with laughter at everything Georgia said. Another man sitting in a chair that Colby could swear had been empty a moment before wore a scraggly beard and a flower-printed shirt. He lifted a teacup to his lips and scowled at Colby over the rim. A woman with long, brown hair dotted with little flowers and wrinkled, skinny arms checked Colby out, too, as though he didn’t belong there, as though he didn’t quite fit in with the rest of them.
Her steel blue eyes bore holes into him.
Suddenly, Colby was hit with a feeling he hadn’t had since high school, that he wasn’t one of them. He didn’t quite fit with the band kids, and he didn’t quite fit with the cool kids either. He wasn’t a hippie, and he wasn’t a well-known real estate mogul, like Clint Rollins. He was a drifter, moving in and out of the crowds, doing things his own way. Everywhere he went, people weren’t sure what to expect from him. They were cautious, intimidated.
Even now at this table, nobody knew what to make of his brooding looks and heavily ringed fingers. Colby blinked to try and make the ghosts go away. They did, to his relief, fading into the ether, vanishing before his very eyes. Maybe he shouldn’t have accepted the beer. Last thing he needed was more specters, especially after Sam saw that shadow man again.
“Right, Colby?” Sam gaped at him.
Colby blinked twice, trying to focus. “Sorry, what?” He felt oddly out of his own body, like watching dinner unfold from behind a dreamy sheet of glass.
Sam was watching him carefully. “I was saying how college is great for some, but it isn’t for everybody. How most do just fine without it.”
“Oh, yeah, yeah…what Sam said.” Colby held onto the edge of the table. The dizzying feeling was back, and so were two of the ghosts, the two hippies that were Georgia and Clint’s guests. Was he watching a dinner scene from long ago, or were the ghosts here and now? Where was his EMF detector when he needed it?
The man with the scruffy beard pivoted his face straight at him. Half his cheek skin was falling right off, decomposing, chunks landing right on Georgia’s clean dinner linens, bloody flesh oozing through the fabric.
Leave, man, the dude cried. Get the hell out!
Startled, Colby jumped back in his seat, his knees knocking the underside of the table, making a pitcher of water jump. Sam and Alex stared at him, slack-jawed. He instinctively reached out to steady the pitcher, but knocked a glass of water onto its side. The puddle spread out over the table.
“Fuck. I’m…I’m so sorry.” Colby stood, as everyone jumped to their feet to help. He pressed his napkin into the spill and even tried using the hem of his T-shirt.
“No, dear. That’s perfectly all right. It’s only water!” Georgia cheerily left to the kitchen, presumably to get a towel, while Sam and Alex just stared at Colby.
“Bro?” Sam cocked his head.
“Yeah,” he lied. He definitely wasn’t all right. Even if the ghosts had dissolved again, he was still left with the startling image of that man’s decomposed face. But Trey remained at the table, studying him suspiciously, and something told Colby not to tell the truth about what he’d seen. Let Trey wonder.
After helping Georgia blot out the mess, Colby didn’t want to sit at the dinner table any longer. He began picking up dishes and carrying them to the kitchen, just to keep moving and prevent the ghosts from showing up again. He didn’t want to be in this dining room, or this house, if he was honest.
“Oh, honey, leave it,” Georgia told Colby, gripping his forearm. The coldness of her touch shocked Colby. He thought she’d be warm, like her demeanor, but her gemstone eyes blew an icy breeze through his soul.
He pulled out of her grip.
“Put it there in the sink. It’ll give me something to do later.” She whisked by the schedule on the fridge and paused to read it. “Oh, my, is it really nearly 8:58? I’m going to go upstairs to get ready for bed, but you boys stay down here and chat until the tow truck arrives. Take your shoes off. Get comfy.” She twiddled her fingers and left, taking the chill with her.
Colby rubbed his tired eyeballs and wandered around the house aimlessly, thinking about his time here. All the weirdness, the van breaking down, ghosts on the beach, and now ghosts in the house? Couldn’t they see he was trying to leave, but circumstances kept preventing him? The experience was worth at least two, three videos when they got home to L.A. Maybe a book. Maybe a full-length feature film.
Wandering into a corner of the living room, he felt the presence of people following him, not unlike the sensation of paranoia he’d once felt while smoking weed. Needless to say, he didn’t like that one particular side effect. Alex, Trey, and Sam had gathered in front of a painting, so Colby joined them, so he wouldn’t be alone. Still, Colby kept glancing over his shoulder, expecting the ghosts to follow him. He couldn’t see them, but the skin on his arms prickled into goosebumps nonetheless.
“What’s with all the elevens?” Sam pointed to the painting featuring lots of 1s. “I’ve noticed them on different pieces of art.”
Trey shoved a hand into the neatly pressed pair of pants he’d changed into when they’d gotten back from walking the two miles. “Georgia loves the time 11:11. She sees them as symbolic numbers.”
“Symbolic how?” Alex asked.
Whereas he’d been excited to show off his house yesterday, today Trey seemed irked at having to give explanations. “In numerology,” he sighed, “the numbers 1-1-1-1 add up to four. Four corners, four walls, representing the square, stability, builders, doers, successful people.” He led them around the living room, pointing out more pieces all with the numbers 11:11 on them. “People like Martin Luther King Jr., who had a vision then worked to make that vision a reality. People who manifest their dreams.”
Colby held his breath. Every time he’d ever heard about people manifesting their dreams, they were into the Instagram witchy culture aesthetic. Maybe Georgia was a witch, but not in the fairytale or Salem sense—more like in the metaphysical sense. He thought back to all the outfits she’d worn, the boho hippie dresses, the Buddha bust, and such.
On a side table sat a crude ceramic bowl resembling a half skull, what seemed to be African animal art, holding keys, paper clips, and lost buttons. Colby picked it up to examine it.
“She feels that you, Sam and Colby, are 11:11 folks, too,” Trey explained. “That’s why she likes having you around. She vibes with your energy.”
“Does she now?” Colby looked underneath the bowl, saw a sticker that said Handmade—1990, then set it back on the table. Next to it was a vase filled with peacock feathers. Next to that was another stack of screenplays. “So, tell me, dude, what are Clint’s scripts about? I never knew you were into writing. Our friend Nate’s a writer, too.”
“Different things,” Trey said, checking his old-school grandpa watch. “I would show them to you, but…”
“Clint, honey, you comin’ up?” Georgia’s voice floated down the stairwell. “You wouldn’t want to get another 8.5 today, would you?” Her laugh sounded flute-y and cackly, and it resurrected Colby’s goosebumps.
“Be right there,” Trey called upstairs. “Time to shower with Georgia.” He winked.
Colby glanced at Sam again, that unspoken knowing look. Trey had taken a shower when they got back, even changed into fresh old guy’s clothes. “You don’t have to go,” Colby quietly reminded him. “This schedule thing. You don’t have to do it every time. You live here, too. You have a say.”
Trey paused to study his face, as he considered Colby’s advice. “Oh, yes, I must,” he said, staring at Colby so hard, he thought maybe he could see through him. “Every minute is of the essence. Perfection, Colby, is key.”
Colby recoiled like a snake that’d been threatened with a stick. “But it isn’t, Trey. Nobody’s perfect. No life is perfect. Not you, not Georgia. Aiming for perfection only makes you appreciate life less, not more. Real life is messy, bro.”
“So philosophical.” Trey smiled sadly and then tapped the wall, as though his time to discuss it was up. “You gentlemen look around. Enjoy the art. I’ll be back soon.” He disappeared up the stairs, leaving them to their own devices in the middle of this great, big, unnerving mansion.
Colby sidled up to his friends. “Every minute is of the essence? Perfection is key? Guys, what the ever-loving fuck is going on?”