“Hurry up,” I shouted. “I’m freezing over here.” I had finally convinced Fabian to go with me to the antique store down the road from my house. The outside of the 1871 building was stucco and had a vine that was close to death running up the side and into a second story window. I had been here once or twice, and I fell in love with the place every time I went. There were actually a few different antique stores in the building, each owned by a different person.

We approached the door, shivering and freezing. The snow should have kept us at home. We really should not have even considered doing this on a day like today. I only realized once we were inside that the building had no heating. The shop owner, however, was kind enough to place a few stand alone heaters every so often. Although it was a nice gesture, it really didn’t do much for the overall temperature.

I glanced around the white, old room that wasn’t really a room. Trying to knock the snow off our boots, we made our way to the wooden stairs only a few feet away. This particular store was on the second and third story of the building. The barely lit stairs creaked underfoot.
Fabian, behind me, was unusually quiet. On the way here, he complained. About the weather, about the impending holiday season which he never enjoyed, about the incredibly short break from school. He always complained or made his feelings known, even if no one wanted to listen to him or cared. He had and opinion on everything. But right now, he was suspiciously silent.

I looked at my friend, just a glance, to make sure he hadn’t disappeared. When I returned my gaze to the top of the stairs, I saw a shadow. A very peculiar shadow, indeed, for there was no light source or an object, just a shadow. It left as quickly as it came and left me wondering if it was ever really there.
Bells could be heard in the distance, signaling that it was six o’clock. We entered the door to the second floor room to the store. There was so much--stuff. It wasn’t organized, it was just thrown together in a room. There was, however, a narrow path around the haphazardly placed items. Fabian and I walked around couches, mirrors, wedding dresses, desks, paintings, dolls, cabinets, clothes, toys, memorabilia, sculptures, jewelry, lamps, and unopened cardboard boxes containing even more treasures. A layer of dust had settled over the entire room.
As we moved toward the back window, the lights flickered. The first time it happened, it wasn’t bothersome, but the seventh time it happened, I started to get worried. Fabian told me that nothing was wrong, that the building was just old and that’s what happens in old buildings. I, on the other hand, normally a paranoid person anyways, asked if we could leave. He just countered that I had forced him to come here, so we might as well stay.
The hair on the back of my neck stood up. I looked around, feeling someone else's presence, feeling as if they were watching me. “Fabian,” I said. “Do you feel like someone, or something, is watching us?”
“No,” he replied casually. He lifted up a pair of reading glasses that were on a table. “Hey, how much do you think these would cost?”
“Check the price tag, Fabian,” I replied.
“Oh, yeah. Um, 10 bucks. Should I get them?”
“Do you need them?” I questioned.
“I don’t know, they look cool, though.”
“Do you seriously not feel like anything is wrong?” I said while the lights flickered yet again. There was a noise that sounded like the scurrying of rats across wood floors, which we happened to be standing on. I gave Fabian a questioning look, silently asking him to explain the odd happenings.
“Old buildings normally have rodents. Now quit your worrying, we’re fine.” I didn’t believe him, but didn’t say anything, just examined the peeling wallpaper hanging loosely off the frail walls. There seemed to be writing underneath. I slowly walked over and began separating paper from wall. The fact that there was writing on the wall was understandable, but what the writing said was the terrifying part.
“Fabian will die,” I said reading the wall. Fabian’s eyes were on me and the wall. He blinked a few times then ran over and ripped the rest of the wallpaper off that was covering the mysterious message.
“Fabian will die at 6:18 p.m. on Tuesday December 17, 2013,” Fabian said quietly, voice cracking toward the end. He stared at me, panicked but also questioning if I did this. A bitterly cold wind tore through the room, sending shivers down our spines and our hair into a frenzy, but when it died down, the rest of the room seemed untouched.
“Now do you believe that something is wrong? By the way, what time is it?”
He checked his phone. “6:05.”
“Thirteen minutes to live. Great. Do you think it’s true?”
“Even if it is true, why would I die?”
“All signs point to a pissed off ghost.”
“Why would a ghost be angry with me?” He went sit down on the closest chair, but heard a snap and shatter. “The glasses. I just sat on the glasses, didn’t I?”
I nodded saying “I guess we now know why. We still need to know how and if we can stop it. The glasses seem to be haunted, but they’re destroyed. They seemed to have been what’s holding the spirit here. If there are other objects they owned, they could be possessing those, too. And if that’s true, we have to burn those objects.”
“But how do we know what else belonged to them?”
“Don’t know. Maybe, just maybe, if we burn the whole place down before 6:18, you won’t die.”
“I guess that could work. Let’s just hope that the spirit is actually attached to an object here.”
6:08, I found gasoline in the closet on the ground floor. 6:12, everyone else was evacuated. 6:13, Fabian and I made a large pile of items in order to burn them quickly. 6:15, gas was poured over the pile. 6:16, I lit a match and ran outside with Fabian. 6:16 and 30 seconds, Fabian realizes he left his jacket with his phone and wallet in it inside. 6:17, Fabian runs inside. 6:17 and 30 seconds, the fire reached a cabinet with cans of paint in it. 6:18, Fabian dies of from exploding paint cans.