The howling was still going on, but Dan ignored it and concentrated on Luke. He let the younger man talk, and didn't interrupt or push at all. He also caught a flicker of a young woman, but sensed Luke's protectiveness about her, and so he said nothing. He drank coffee and listened, two things he was excellent at.
When Luke fell quiet, Dan walked back round to be closer to him, and hopped up onto the prep table. Well, okay, he put his coffee down on the table and pushed himself up onto it. He was 41, and starting to go more than a little gray, especially when his stubble got closer to "beard" than not. He didn't "hop up" anywhere any more.
"When I was five years old, my dad took a job as a winter caretaker for a hotel, up in the Rockies in Colorado. My mom and I, we moved there with him. It had... all kinds of ghosts. All kinds of evil. A lot of bad things happened, and in the end, the hotel boiler blew up and took the hotel and my dad with it. And some of the ghosts followed me when we left." He spoke quietly as he gave Luke a very brief summary of that awful winter, looking down at his coffee as he did so. And then he looked up at Luke again.
"I'm not... I know this isn't a competition or anything like that. I just wanted you to know that I get it. I more than understand where you're coming from, okay? You can tell me to fuck off if you want, but you can always ask me for help. I'll talk any time you like, no matter what time of day or night it is."