"Yeah, but you still can't melt through the floor..."
It all started when my friend, Alan, decided he would have a party at his house. When we say party, it usually means a harmless gathering of friends where Halo and nocturnal bludgeoning takes place. Regardless of what was supposed to go on, it wasn�t expected that I could disappear out of a second story bedroom and evade up to (and including) ten people who were actually looking for me. Things like this take skill.
Now, I am making absolutely no sense, and since I didn�t climb out of a window and shimmy down the chimney, I must have melted through the floor, right? Now, that all depends on how good your imagination was; and given my current reputation, my friends have pretty limited imaginations. It is pretty clich� for me to walk around pretending I�m the T-1000 and having fun, but you have to admit that I have earned the title. Let me tell you why.
As you have guessed, I didn�t literally melt through the floor. What happened started in Alan�s basement, after three (out of eight) of us were swimming, (I wasn�t yet) and Alan was giving lessons on the perfect towel whip. I was downstairs, but eventually migrated to the ground floor to congregate with Natalie (Alan�s sister), Jeremy, and Brandon Brown. I don�t know what provoked him, but Alan just walked up the stairs and towel whipped me in the left thigh. Of course he bolted, and what seemed funny was that I couldn�t feel any pain, so I chased him.
After the second step, though, the pain kicked in, and my left leg collapsed, leaving me in a heap in the living room floor. I couldn�t fathom what had just happened to me: the pain was delayed, like a gunshot (and it felt like a gunshot!). Seeing this, Alan stopped and started laughing hysterically as I limped in the opposite direction, toward the back door. Well, he stopped laughing as I picked up one of his dad�s size eighty sandal started toward him. Predictably, Alan continued his retreat up the other stairs into his room.
I have to explain the layout of the top floor for you to understand the story. As you walk in the front door on ground level, you are facing the stairs going up. the right side to the wall. The stairs, along with every other floor in the house, had hardwood flooring. What I love about this flooring is that beneath it is some kind of salt that makes the floor absolutely silent, even as Alan�s six foot-eight dad walks across it: not a creak to be heard.
Anyway, at the top of these stairs is a landing, with a door at the right and the left. The door on the left is Alan�s room, and the one on the right, Natalie�s. Each room has a half bath, along with a room connecting those half baths that has the shared shower. Like a hotel room, you can systematically lock the doors so that you have privacy, whichever half of the 3/2 bathroom you use. Obviously, as you enter Alan�s room, his bathroom is on the right, and Natalie�s, on the left. The bath tub is behind the wall of the landing.
I was gathering my strength to chase Alan up the stairs, which I did. As I figured he would, he went in his room and locked the door. Figuring this, I went in Natalie�s bathroom and into the shower section, to get into Alan�s room via his half-bath. That backfired: Alan was actually using his bathroom, so he already had his door locked by coincidence. Knowing my luck, one thing goes wrong after another. Not only was Alan�s bathroom locked, but I could hear the rest of the party, including Natalie, searching for me. I could only guess that they had towels of their own. This is when I knew I was doomed, but it is also when I am said to have melted through the floor. Here�s what actually happened:
Brandon Martini and Natalie were the only ones who actually knew I was in the bathroom. This is because they saw me when they looked in. What the rest of them didn�t count on was the fact that Brandon is more than my friend: he�s my neighbor. Remembering our comradeship, he innocently turned and said, "I don�t get it: he�s not in here!" Natalie was the neutral party, but she played her part quite nicely. Eager to find me, the rest of the prey-turned-hunters left to continue the search without looking for themselves. I think this right here is the main reason why I escaped, but now you now the unexpected truth: two people so far knew of my whereabouts.
I knew that this freedom wouldn�t last for long, but I had to wait for Alan to exit his room (I couldn�t have him behind me in this chase, it would lead to my capture). After a short time, Alan did leave his room, heading down one floor to take up arms in The Pursuit Against Shane. So, I waited until Alan was down the stairs, and then I made my move. (This is the second shocking truth).
I have exceptionally good hearing, so when I didn�t hear anyone on the ground floor, I headed down the silent stairs. The getaway was not yet complete however. My shoes, my coat, my hat and my gloves (the hat and gloves are necessary, and all of my clothes were black, as was the night outside) were still in the basement which was under heavy surveillance.
I know Alan�s house, and I know it has no armory, so whatever weapons that would be used against me had to be fashioned out of household materials. This fact bought me enough time to liberate some Pepsi and a slice of pizza from the kitchen before I hid in the bathroom by the stairs going into the basement. Somehow, I went unnoticed in the 5�-10� bathroom, and snuck downstairs when the search party moved into the ground level kitchen (yes, there is a kitchen/bar in the basement). Finally, the key elements of my escape. In the middle of the basement is a couch (facing one of the X-Boxes), and on that couch was my coat, my hat and my gloves. It was cold outside, so I quickly donned all of my black outer-wear. My escape was made by going out the basement door (after equipping my black combat boots) that faces the pool at the bottom of the hill (the hill that encompasses the house�s foundation).
Guess what? I�m still not safe. Shortly after I left the basement, the search party left the house via the back door on the ground floor (yes, the basement patio is made possible by a retaining wall). I barely had enough time to make it to the far side of the pool, and hide in it�s shadow when even more bad news arrived. That bad news went by the name of Bruce Gradolph, Alan�s dad. He wasn�t angry, but when he heard of my disappearing act, he got worried. To make sure I had not drowned, he turned on the spotlights by the pool. They now knew that I wasn�t dead, in the pool, so they started to form a perimeter around the pool.
This is one of my proudest moments that night. As the search party came around from my right (the far side of the pool from the house), Alan�s dad had my left covered. My only option was to pull a Solid Snake, and Solid Snake I became. Since there was only one of Alan�s dad (on the ground level deck, by the house), and seven people coming from my right, I had to go left. This is normally impossible, but I have a skill involving knowing precisely when someone has their attention on me or my locale. I skillfully anticipated the move of Bruce�s sweeping gaze, and darted past him into the shadows as his eyes moved away from my shrinking shadow.
That was it! I had done it! Now, all I had to do is get back in the house, take of my "sneaking suit," and act casual when the search party came inside (of course I�d make them look stupid). Wrong! As I went to the other side of the house and entered the garage door, opposite the kitchen from the back door, I saw the others coming in, too.Luckily there was a pseudo mud-room by the garage door, so I hid in some coats hanging on a wall against the door frame. By now I was actually worrying, because Brandon Martini and Alan went into the kitchen to get food. They were no more than two feet away from me as they searched the refrigerator for Ranch dressing.
Again, I waited until the coast was clear. I had a near run-in with the sneaky Robert, but he was easily avoided as I went back upstairs. Now Alan�s room was empty, so I retrieved the fleece shirt that I had left in there earlier, put it on, and headed back down stairs. Now I was properly equipped, for in my fleece shirt pocket was a home-made Mega-flare and an M-80, along with my Pirate-X reserves.
Downstairs I met up with Alan�s parents, the third shocking truth, and after permission to use illegal fireworks was granted, I headed back outside. Anticipating the enemies� moves, I went in the basement door as they went upstairs. After gathering intel, I returned to my element to tangle with the hostile forces. What went on in the shadows is classified, due to my superstitious beliefs of mine regarding the shadows of myself and those around me. What I can tell you is that I used my Mega-flare to draw attention, but it worked faster than I anticipated, and Brandon Brown was on me before I could yell, "Oh s**t!" He was quickly met by Derek, and they thought that they had me pinned. (Yes, this is the fourth shocking truth: now six out of ten people had seen me so far.)
You don�t need to know what I did, but I did break free, rather easily. You see, I was tired from all of this running, so Brandon B. caught me easily. It was not without a price, though; now Brandon was tired, and I was quickly gaining strength. After I slipped out of his clumsy arm-hold, I tore off into the wooded front yard, and Derek called for reinforcements. During the two and a half minutes that I was a hostage, I gathered that Alan and Travis had the garden hose.
This prompted me to run the other side of the house, but not before Brandon Martini caught up to me. As we rounded the corner of the house, his footsteps stopped, and I heard, "Psst! Shane, over here!" in a quiet, Brandon-like whisper. I saw that he had stopped in the shadow by the house�s corner, so I joined him. This is were comradeship come into play again. Brandon had a plan. "Alright, here�s what we do: you make for a bush, and I�ll roll down the hill." it sounded Brandon enough, so off to a bush I went. Behind me I heard Brandon laughing and crying out as he tumbled down the hill in the opposite direction. This fifth shocking truth is what enabled me to make my grand finale.
When Brandon�s distraction took effect, I found another, non-disclosed door into the house, and found the living room. There sat Jeremy Walbridge, Travis Gipson, Natalie and her mom, Lee-Anne. When the rest of the search party entered the house, we were already into a full-blown conversation that was, well, a little on the manic side. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the rest of the search party felt very stupid.
The rest of that party was relatively normal, but now you know the truth about what happened that night that I melted through the floor. What was shocking was that every single one of the hunters found me, but all individually or in pairs, and never long enough to keep me in one place. So there you have it, "I am the ghost that all see, yet none see."
(In layman�s terms, that means that, like an urban legend, everybody saw me happen. But, since it all happened without a witness, none of the Shane sightings were witnessed by everybody at the same time, none were credible. That is, until now...)