Chapter Two - Münster in the Night

IT WOULD BE less embarrassing if I blacked out. Instead, I lie on the floor, trying to pretend I'm unconscious while four still completely naked men bicker above me.

"Good going."

"Me? Why are you looking my way? It was Cheddy who greeted her."

"And you expect me to believe you didn't make some lewd gesture at her?"

"Well, now that you say that… Hey! It was a joke. Lay off the threads. Metaphorical threads. Where did I leave my pants?"

A single soft voice chirps up from the back. "Who is she?"

"Good question." A hand like a catcher's mitt slams into my shoulder and jerks me off of the ground. "Ma'am? Are you awake?"

"Keep shouting into her face, Roq. You have a real way with ladies."

As I shake back and forth, my eyes shoot open like those old baby dolls. A face of steel peers into my soul. Rock hard and rippling, everything is right there and nearly pressed to my clumsy body. I watch the sweat dripping down his nude skin as he works his palms over my arms. My mouth opens for a scream of terror. All that falls out is a panicking squeak. "Hi."

"She is unharmed," he declares and pulls back far enough I can see his hair. The man looks like a combination of gruff construction worker meets stern banker. It inverts my brain to realize that his no-nonsense hair is deep blue with hints of green highlights.

I blink rapidly, certain that if I close my eyes the right way these men will vanish.

The big blue one stares back, his face scrunched up like I stink. I was on a plane and the Uber driver didn't seem to believe in deodorant, so… Oh my god, why do I care what a figment of my imagination thinks of how I smell?

"Found ‘em!" A man cries out from deeper in the cellar. He comes jogging back with a large trunk that the others reach into before he has a chance to set it down.

"Here you go, Roq," the soft-spoken one says. He drops a pair of wire-framed glasses in the blue one's hand. This Roq nods his thanks, then hooks the glasses around his ears. He blinks in the low light and zooms in on me.

His stoic, granite face shifts to sunburn-red in an instant, and he gulps. Twitching his nose like he's about to sneeze, he demands, "What are you doing down here, young lady?"

"I was…um, looking?"

"Careful there." A man with ebony locks to his shoulders peers over at me. As he speaks, he buttons up a tight leather vest. "The sight of us has been known to cause uncontrollable madness."

"Really?" I cry out and reach to cover my eyes.

"Ignore him," Roq says, catching my wrists. "He's a fool."

"But a gorgeous one," the vest man calls out. He leaps to tug up a pair of skin-tight trousers, then pauses to display the side of his ass. Oh, I shouldn't be seeing this. Certainly not noting that flat divot before all those hard muscles curve out.

Vest guy gives me a devious grin, then smacks his ass. That's very… What am I doing? When I turn away, he laughs. I try to hide my blush behind my hair, but as the ends are still dyed pink, it doesn't work so well.

"Who are you? How did you find this place?"

It is a strange feeling to be grilled as three other men dress around me. I keep trying to focus on the nude-except-for-his-glasses one, only to be distracted by the other three slipping on shirts, tying strings, buttoning jeans, and adjusting themselves.

"I'm Violette," I whisper.

One of the men, blond and sporting a scruffy beard, drops a shirt over Roq's head. Roq reaches an arm up through the sleeve without taking his eyes off of me. "What was that?"

"My name, it's Violette."

"Enchante." The dark-haired man in all black leather leans over and reaches to take my hand. He pulls my knuckles to his lips, his honey-brown eyes peeling all of my clothes off without a care. "Nothing compares to the blush of a French girl."

As he puckers up, my whole face burns. Roq slaps his hand away just before he can kiss mine. "Will you contain yourself?" he chastises the dark-haired man.

Pouting, he saunters away to the trunk of clothing. "Isn't that what we just broke out of?"

Broke out of? Are they prisoners? Did they tunnel out of jail right into my great uncle's cheese shop basement? "Who are you?" I ask.

Roq glares, or maybe he redoubles it. It seems like all he does is glare or sigh in exasperation. "We're doing the asking—"

"I am Lord Cam, my wide-eyed pixie." The dark-haired one takes a deep bow, his locks swinging in front of his face.

To my surprise, Roq starts to laugh. I half expect the attempt to shatter his face. "Lord of the Ditch perhaps." That causes the dark-haired one to snarl. "He is Cam, nothing more."

"Hi." An exuberant man wearing an old-fashioned button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows jerks a hand out to me. He's got caramel blond hair and eyes to match. Smiling from ear to ear with perfect teeth, he says. "I'm Cheddy. Sir Cheddy, if we're being formal. We're not, right?"

Rather than take my hand to kiss it, he slaps my palm. The pop echoes through the basement. He clenches his fists in celebration of that single touch.

"Ah, no. I don't think so."

"Good, "cause I haven't seen my armor in…" He blows air through his luscious, Tom-Hardyesque lips. "How long's it been, Roq?"

"I haven't the foggiest," the blue-haired one groans.

"This is Roq," Cheddy chimes in, then he clasps his hands around the man's neck and lays his head on the man's shoulder. "He's our leader."

"I never agreed to that," Cam stews, leaning against one of the vats with a nonchalant air. I half expect him to blow a ring of smoke from his mouth.

Three men introduced themselves, but there's still one left unaccounted for. "Who's that?" I ask, pointing to the lithe one hiding behind not only Cheddy but his own hair.

"This…" Cheddy slaps two arms around the startled man and pulls him to the light. Blindingly blue eyes blink at me from below tawny hair. "…is Bree. He's a little shy."

"HeEllo!" Bree's voice cracks. His face crumples in a familiar look of mortification, then he shrinks into the collar of his shirt.

"Nice to meet you," I say, overrun with sympathy. Bree takes a quick peek over at me, then he buries his face in Cheddy's shoulder. The exuberant man either doesn't notice or care.

Roq suddenly slides into view. "Now that the introductions are over, explain yourself. What are you doing down here?"

"Like I said…"

"Yes, you were ‘looking.' Looking for what, precisely?"

Not four naked men, that much is certain.

Cam interrupts with a strange question. "How long were we out? This doesn't feel like a Sunday to me."

"You can feel days?" Cheddy asks with wonder.

"No, he can't," Roq argues.

"Of course. Sunday has that quiet, holier than thou, secretly judging you feel. Like Roq."

Roq's response is to snarl.

"What about me?" Cheddy asks damn near clapping his hands.

"You, my friend, are a Saturday to the core."

"I like this game. Oh, and Bree? Is he a Wednesday?"

"No one likes Wednesday," Bree mutters.

"I'm not sure if that's right," Cam muses.

"Enough!" Roq shoots to his feet until his head nearly collides with the ceiling. A pale pink dick with a red head bobs toward me shaking with anger. I dig my nails into my knees, fighting to force my head to turn, but it's stuck.

I shouldn't be looking. I shouldn't be anywhere near a naked man. That pulsing vein is burning into my soul with every second.

"Pst," Cam calls to him. "XY…yer cock's out."

Roq slaps a hand over his loin region, disguising some of it. With a snarl, he pulls out his trousers and tries to dress while laying into the other men. Round about the time he closes the long line of buttons on his pants, he turns to me. "What day is today?"

They don't know the date?

"Please…?" Cam prompts causing Roq to sigh.

"Please tell me what today's day is, Violette."

"The second," I squeak.

They all gasp.

"Three weeks?" Cam fumes for some reason.

Roq's voice softens to an almost mournful cry. "And the month, young lady?"

They're all staring at me like they're on pins and needles hoping for the right answer. I want to give it to them, but I have no idea what they want. "April?"

"Seven months!" Cam exclaims. "I knew this was a bad deal from the start."

"Calm yourself," Roq argues. "There must be an explanation."

"The explanation is that he fucked us over because he can. Just like everyone before him."

"What would you have me do?" Roq turns on Cam, the both of them looking about to come to blows.

While Cam is certainly no lightweight, his biceps and pecs flexing taut like a boxer under his vest, he doesn't stand a chance against Roq. He's like half as wide as him.

Half as wide…

I flinch, remembering something. But no. That can't be right. Still, I reach into my bag for the old photo from the wall.

The four men break out into what sounds like a never-ending argument.

"What would you have me do?" Roq begins.

"Anything other than selling us out," Cam shouts in his face.

"We need—"

"We don't need anything! We can do this just fine on our own without greedy hu—"

"Hey," Cheddy pipes up, his gregarious energy puncturing through the fight. "What's this?" Bent over, he picks my abandoned phone off of the floor. "A chocolate bar? I'm famished."

"No, stop!" I shout as he plunges his teeth into the screen.

"Ugh. It's rock hard and tastes like a window," he complains.

Wobbling, I manage to stand and rip my cell out of his hands. "This isn't food. It's my phone." Using my sleeve, I try to wipe away his saliva without getting any of it on me. The haphazard swiping causes my menu screen to pull down and switch off airplane mode.

My mother's vengeful ring cries out.

I stare in terror knowing who's on the other end. But all four strange men home in on it like my phone's about to explode.

"What the hell is that?" Cam asks. They stare at my screen as the call icon shakes back and forth like it's haunted.

"My cellphone. I'm getting a call…" I say carefully, hoping none of them are about to go nuclear over a ringing sound.

They're dumbstruck by a simple piece of technology, all of them acting like they've never even… My heart jumps. I look down at the photograph that's fallen from my purse. Then my eyes dart up to the four faces staring at me. They're exact duplicates. Not a wrinkle of difference. It's like fifty years didn't even touch them.

Gulping, I walk back. My heels slam into the wall. "You're…" I swallow hard, fighting through the panic welling up in my throat.

"We're what?" Roq asks.

They appeared out of nowhere. Wear strange, old-fashioned clothes. Have weird names. And they haven't aged in half a century.

There's only one answer.

"You're ghosts!" I shriek and turn for the ladder. They reach to stop me, but my flailing thumb hits my camera button. A great flash of light stuns them and they stagger back. Running on panic, I skitter up the ladder and out of the cellar.

They're right behind me!

I don't even bother to slam the hidden door. I book it through the store until my palms hit the front door. The jangle of keys catches my attention and I yank them out.

Whispering prayers to anyone who might be listening, I shove the door closed with all of my weight and turn the lock on the outside.

They're coming. They're going to eat my eyeballs.

I'm not strong enough to fight my gremlin and twist the lock another four times until it's fed.

Air burning in my chest, I pant in horror from the edge of the sidewalk. The lights are still on, cutting through the darkness of the street. Rain pounds, drenching me to the bone. I keep watching, laughing at myself.

It's all in my head. I made it up. I scared myself. This is so silly. Go back in there and…

A hand slams out of the gap and grips to the floor. I don't see who pops out as I'm already running across the street away from the murderous cheese ghosts.