12. STEVIE #3
“Do you need help?” I ask and walk over to help her pick up her books. I pick up a few off the ground, and Lo scowls.
“You guys were wondering why I wasn’t that scared of my ghost before, and this is exactly why. Constantly doing things that are just annoying—”
“Stevie!”
I look over in Andrew’s direction and just narrowly miss being hit by another book. “Oh, shit .” I look at the book that’s since hit the wall and fallen on the floor, and then look back over at the bookshelf as if there will be any kind of explanation.
Lo gasps, a hand to her heart. “Oh my god.”
My heart is beating so fast I can hear the blood pounding in my ears.
“Sorry, maybe I shouldn’t be so vocal. The ghost has been kind of agitated lately,” Lo says sympathetically and gingerly touches my head as if the book actually hit me.
I laugh, but it comes across as more of a nervous chuckle. “It’s alright.”
“Good footage for the episode.”
I nod, doing everything I can to bring my heart rate back down to normal. I might as well have just run the mile. “Good footage for the episode.”
“Andrew, grab the camera. I know we weren’t planning on starting yet, but we might as well,” I say. I stack up the books of Lo’s that are within reach, and Lo does the same.
“You got it.” Andrew hurries down the hallway again so quickly that I can literally hear him running through the house.
I get up and walk over to the shelves to investigate.
The most defiant part of myself wants to poke a hole in the story.
There has to be a string attached to some of the books or something , but I can’t think of anything.
There’s nothing hanging from the ceiling, and a setup for something like this would be too elaborate to set up in a few hours, even for someone as practiced as Andrew.
Andrew comes in with the camera, fumbling with it as he points it at me.
There are times when being a low-budget, low-brow show has worked for us, like now.
Our fans in particular have liked the almost found-footage way we shoot.
We’ve never actually had to shoot with live-time urgency before—we’d only ever just pretended it was before—but it’s turning out to be useful now to be able to basically just whip out a camera and go, like we’re a news crew on the ground.
Andrew points at me to tell me that he’s rolling.
“We’re in Lo’s room right now, where we just caught books flying off the walls on camera.
” I wave my hand through the air near the shelves.
“You can see that there aren’t any strings.
There’s nothing built into the room to make the books randomly come down. ”
Talking about it on camera immediately brings me back into the headspace of filming our previous episodes.
It makes it easier to separate myself from what’s actually going on and instead think of it as an elaborate set design.
It’s all just beats I have to hit to tell a good story in the episode. Nothing more.
“This room has been a hotspot in the time we’ve been here, but Lo has told us previously that her bedroom has been off-limits. It’s a new—and frightening—development,” I continue and then motion for Andrew to cut.
“That was crazy, dude,” Andrew says, almost giddy. “Like, the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“I don’t know about coolest. ” I move around some of Lo’s books on the shelves, as if testing to see if any of them will suddenly go flying off. “I don’t see what reason there would be to do something like that. Is it meant to be a threat? Or are we just being fucked with?”
“You’re starting to sound like you might believe it’s a ghost,” Lo says from across the room.
I shrug off the comment, too proud to admit that this has been the strongest evidence so far that something might be going on.
There are too many things piling up for it all to be coincidences.
Blaming things on a house being old or the wiring being shitty or someone pulling a prank on us is one thing, but this doesn’t feel like that anymore.
But the reality is that maybe all this time I’ve spent rolling my eyes at my grandparents and poking holes in stories about paranormal encounters and profiting off the curiosity of those who really want answers has been misguided.
Maybe there has always been some truth to it all, and I just refused to see it.
I swallow hard. I’m not ready to deal with that yet. Not while I’m in Lo’s house and potentially brushing shoulders with a ghost.
“Where to next, boss?” Andrew asks.
“I’m not sure—”
A book suddenly goes whizzing past my head, followed by another past my feet. I jump nearly a foot into the air. “Dude, what the fuck—”
“Move!” Lo shouts.
Andrew and I listen, jumping out of the way as one of Lo’s bookshelves tips and then falls, crashing to the floor.
All of us scream—even the twins who are across the room—and jump back toward the door. Andrew grips the camera as he moves across the room in three giant steps.
I reach for Lo. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine—are you okay? You were almost under it.”
“Yeah, I’m good,” I say and shake off the jolt of adrenaline that just jump-started my entire nervous system.
“I saw it swaying, like someone was trying to tip it. We’ll have to check if the camera caught that—I’m sure it’s even scarier to watch from a different angle,” Lo says. “I almost thought I was making it up.”
“I’m personally glad you said something,” Andrew says.
I walk over to see if I can lift the bookshelf myself, and Lo shakes her head. “Don’t even bother. I’ll get it put back up soon. And probably actually mount the shelves to the wall like I was supposed to do initially. Realizing now why it’s important to do that.”
“Because a ghost might knock it over?” I ask dryly.
“Exactly.”
“I’m starting to think you should’ve called a priest instead of us,” Sean murmurs warily.
“Me too,” Lo admits.
A rustling sound outside pulls our attention to the closed bedroom window. Lo’s curtains are open, but it’s dark outside, so I can’t see anything. But the way we all looked makes it clear I didn’t just imagine how loud the sound was—or how close it was to us.
“What now?” Lo groans.
The sound continues. The hair on the back of my neck stands up immediately. Even though I can’t see outside, an instinct in me of some kind is telling me that something is definitely looking back at us.
“ Shit ,” I whisper, shaking out my shoulders.
Lo glances over at me. “You’re not allowed to be scared. I need one of us to stay calm.”
“I’m not scared,” I lie, tilting my chin up. “And I think Andrew is the one who wants to take the lead on this. I might as well let him.”
“Right. Because he’s showing initiative and not because you’re too scared to go look at what might be outside.”
“Exactly.”
Lo’s lips turn up. I can see in the quiver of her hand that she’s unsettled, but it’s nice to have even a second where I can forget that we’re in the middle of our own personal horror movie.
What sounds like someone scratching at the exterior walls of the house sounds out, immediately killing the playful mood.
“Oh hell no.” Tanner puts his hands up. “I didn’t think we’d have to deal with a ghost that can go outside of the house, too. That’s fucked up.”
“It could just be an animal or something.” But even as I say it, I’m not convinced. It would have to be a massive animal for it to make that kind of sound and have it carry through the house. It’s like someone is fully ripping at the siding, scratching all the way down it.
Andrew perks up, “Shit, we didn’t set up a camera back there—I’m gonna go see if I can catch anything out there.”
“I don’t know if that’s smart,” Lo says. “I know we’re investigating ghosts or whatever, but that could very well be an animal. Or a human. Which is arguably much scarier.”
“It’ll be fine—Sean, come with me.”
“What the fuck? You’re not leaving me in this house,” Tanner says. “I’m coming too.”
“Whatever, just hurry—we have to catch it before it stops.” Andrew adjusts the camera on his shoulder and heads for the back door. The twins follow closely behind.
“Men,” Lo says, throwing her hands up.
With the three of them gone, the house feels eerily quiet. I grip the flashlight, bracing myself for something else to happen.
“Is it weird of me to say that I find this…kind of fun? Even though I’m scared out of my mind?” Lo whispers. “I think I finally understand the appeal of haunted houses at carnivals.”
I snort. “I think it might only be fun right now because nothing is happening. Give it a minute and you’ll probably feel differently.”
“Don’t jinx us. I don’t want anything else happening tonight. I’ll be perfectly happy never having another ghostly encounter in my own house again.”
I don’t state the obvious—there’s no way the night is over.
The voices of Andrew and the twins carry through the closed window, muffled and a little bit distant. The sound has slowed down since they went out, but that’s not to say that nothing weird is going on.
“We need to get walkie-talkies or something. I don’t like that they’re out there.” I wipe my hands off on my jeans, looking around.
“You don’t want to call them?”
“Phones take away from the vibe on screen. We’re going for a particular atmosphere here.”
Lo’s lips turn up in an amused smile. “No, of course. Why didn’t I think of that?”
“ Lauren .”
My blood runs cold. The voice doesn’t feel human—it’s too low, too much of a whisper. It comes across like nothing more than a breeze passing through the room.
Lo slowly turns to look at me. “Was that you? Please tell me that was you.”
I shake my head. I want to chalk it up to me hearing things, my mind playing tricks in the dark, but we heard it at exactly the same time.
“And the boys aren’t back inside? This isn’t another prank?”
“I haven’t heard them come back in, and they’re not particularly quiet,” I say. In fact, I haven’t heard any of them at all in a second. It’s gotten suspiciously silent.