Crawl

"Honestly? I didn't even know we had a crawl space," Scott said with a frown. "It certainly wasn't mentioned in the lease."

"Well; we do," Kiev replied. "And we need to get under there. Replacing the battery for this WiFi...thing is gonna be way cheaper than calling a guy out to do it. Plus I really don't wanna call the landlord about it."

"Alright; fair. I'm not going down there, though," Scott replied quickly. "That's way too dark and scary."

"You have to. We both do. This is kind of a two-guy job," Kiev shot back. "One guy fiddles with the battery box...thing, the other handles the tools and the new battery. I literally cannot do this by myself."

"We have other roommates," Scott pointed out. Kiev gave him a look.

"Oh right. Lemme just called Aehyz and Arin out of work to come help me do this on mine and your days off," Kiev replied, voice dripping with sarcasm so thick that Scott almost took a step back.

"Fine. Fine, damn you."

Kiev grinned, an expression that Scott was sure the other wolf meant as something cocky, but really appeared to be greatly relieved.

"You got all the stuff?" Kiev asked. Scott nodded, somewhat reluctantly.

"Yeah. Let's just get this over with."

Scott gulped as Kiev shunted the grate that blocked the entrance to the crawl space out of the way. Both wolves poked their heads into the darkness. From somewhere distant, the WiFi box beeped, begging to have its battery replaced.

"I hate you so much right now," Scott murmured.

"Love you too. Come on!"

Kiev clicked on his flashlight, dropped onto his belly, and crawled inside. Scott followed closely, not willing to be alone in such a dark and terrifying place. They followed the beeping noise right to the battery box. Scott lay there shuddering as KIev assessed the situation.

"You got a flathead screwdriver in there?" Kiev asked, laying the flashlight on the floor.

"Yeah, hold on."

Scott dug one out and handed it over, eyes darting around. The fur on the back of his neck was standing up, and he was sure that they were being watched. He didn't like being under here one bit, and audibly let out a sigh of relief when he heard the sound of the battery box cover coming off.

"Alright; hand me the battery, please."

"Yeah yeah, let's just get the hell outta here," Scott grumbled, shoving the battery into Kiev's hand.

Kiev turned back to finish up and Scott glanced back at the exit. It looked so far away from here. The feeling that they were being watched was still very much there, and as Scott turned back to see if Kiev was almost done he froze.

"What the hell is that?"

"What's what?" Kiev asked, screwing the cover of the battery box back on before turning his head. "That little set of lights over there?"

"Bro that's eyes."

"What even...?" Kiev asked, dropping the old battery on the ground. The eyes moved closer.

"Oh hell no, let's get out of here."

"Dude, go!" Kiev hissed, pushing Scott towards the exit. The two golden eyes now moved towards them at an unnatural speed as the two wolves scrambled in the dirt and the wet to get out of the crawl space. Kiev and Scott burst out into the light, and Kiev slammed the grate back into place.

"I hate that, what was that?!" Kiev cried, eyes wide.

"I told you this was a bad idea," Scott protested, keeping a good distance between himself and the house. "We have some kind of monster living under our house. We really, really need to move."

"We can't break the lease," Kiev said with a shake of his head. "We only just signed it a couple months ago. Let's just never go back down there."

"I think I'm gonna sleep in my car tonight," Scott replied, still shaking.