12. STEVIE #4
“Hello?” I call out. I wait a beat to see if anything else happens.
“Did you also hear it say my name?” Lo asks, her hand finding my arm again as she ducks behind me. “Also, using my legal name is an insane choice. It’s like I’m being haunted by my grandma.”
“I guess the odds are never zero, considering Sunniva seems to have spoken to every dead person in Southern California.”
I shiver all over again thinking about what we saw earlier at Sunniva’s house. I earnestly don’t know what’s scarier—being able to actually invite a ghost into her house, or convincing everyone around her that she’s able to do it.
I sigh, annoyed all over again that I keep getting scared so easily. “Are you still there? We’re waiting,” I call out again, pointing the flashlight toward Lo’s bedroom door. The hallway, even when illuminated, is eerie at night.
“Why did you buy this house again?”
“Natural light. And location.”
“Did you take into consideration that this place is really unsettling when the lights are out?”
“Major selling point for me, actually. The ghost, too,” Lo says. “And it’s not that bad. Every house looks scary in the dark.”
“Not like this,” I say. The last time I’d been to a place that made me this uneasy was when I was a kid visiting my grandparents.
I’d refuse to leave my bedroom after a certain hour, even to use the bathroom, because I was so certain something was going to be waiting for me out there.
The visceral memory surprises me—I haven’t thought about what it was really like staying at their house in a long time.
I’ve spent so long using it as a form of credibility, like proximity to creepy desert lore is enough to make me an expert, that I forget the things that I saw and felt actually happened.
And after a lifetime of downplaying it, I’m starting to think maybe my grandparents weren’t wrong when they said there was something strange about their town.
“I know I’ve asked before, but is my house really that bad? Compared to all of the other places you’ve been, I mean. Now that you’re seeing all of this.”
“Yes,” I say, knowing there’s no use in lying.
Lo could go back and watch any of our old episodes to easily confirm it.
Even the fake ghost encounters we’ve set up for the camera haven’t been this elaborate.
It’s the dilemma of truth being stranger than fiction—we don’t want to risk going too far and people assuming it’s all made up.
But we’ve never been in the situation of actually catching paranormal activity on camera, so I don’t know how any of this will play out for fans.
It’s not like I can go on camera and say this is the house that made me realize we don’t have to fake our show .
Lo bites her lip. “Maybe it’s not worth it to try staying here.”
“Not into the looming threat of a bookshelf being pushed onto you at any point?”
“Not particularly—”
“ Lauren .”
We both go completely still. This time, there’s no use in getting confirmation from each other.
“Why does it want me?” Lo whispers. She’s gripping my arm so hard that I’m certain there will be bruises left behind by her fingers.
I bite my lip, wishing I had something helpful to offer. But I don’t. “I don’t know.”
“I know enough to know I’m not supposed to go to the source of the sound,” Lo says. “Did your paranormal investigator school teach you what to do if a ghost wants to kill you?”
“There’s no paranormal investigator school. And no, that’s not really our deal.”
“You guys continue to be useless.”
“Keyword— investigator .”
“All I’m hearing is—“
“ Lauren.”
I put my hands up to my ears like a bug just buzzed past me, and drop my head. The voice was so close this time that it felt almost like it was in the room with us. It might as well have been standing right next to me.
My stomach sinks. If the sound is that close, that must mean the source of the sound is in here with us.
“We need to get out of here,” I say.
Lo glances over at me, slowly dropping her hands from her ears. She has the same expression on her face as me. “Yes, definitely.”
We clear out of the room as quickly as we can. I don’t even bother looking around to see if there’s anything—or anyone—actually in the room. I’m assuming we probably wouldn’t be able to see it anyway, if there was, since that seems to be a trend around here.
We cut back down the hallway and go toward the kitchen. This room feels even more vulnerable than the bedroom—it has entry points from pretty much every direction and windows leading to the outside.
“Any sign of them?” I ask, even though it’s obvious Andrew and the twins aren’t within view. Where the hell did they end up?
Lo shakes her head. She blinks nervously, looking around the kitchen. I sign my flashlight in the opposite direction, checking the perimeter.
“What if something…” Lo starts and then stops.
“It didn’t,” I insist way too quickly. My gut feeling, based on knowing them for so long, is that they’re just off being idiots somewhere. But the odds aren’t exactly zero that something bad did happen to them.
“Maybe they ended up out front?”
“Okay,” Lo agrees.
With the flashlight illuminating our walk through Lo’s house, we make it back to the living room. Even though I know we would’ve heard if the boys were in here, my stomach sinks when I see that the room is empty.
I walk over to the window to peek outside, cutting the flashlight for a second so there’s no glare. “I don’t think I see them.” I sigh. “Where the hell would they have gone? It’s not like you have a huge plot of land—no offense.”
I pull my phone from my pocket and type out, Where the hell are you guys? And then send it in the group chat I have with them.
“So weird. Maybe they’re pulling another prank. But it feels a little early in the night for that—and poorly planned considering there’s more than enough for them to film in here without extra bullshit.”
I realize then that my investigative partner has been quieter than she’s ever been in the admittedly very brief time I’ve known her. “Lo?” I turn the flashlight back on and face it toward her.
Her eyes are wide with panic. “Stevie, I can’t—“ Lo points to her neck. Her voice is strained. “I can’t breathe.”
I hurry over to her. “What do you mean?”
“Pressure.” She huffs the word out through labored breaths. There’s a look of genuine fear in her eyes that scares me.
“What’s going on?” I ask, gently touching her shoulders, then her neck. “Panic attack? How can I help?”
“Get…its…hands…off…my…neck.” Lo fights for every word, pushing them out with force. She claws at her throat, desperate now.
“I don’t see anything,” I say frantically. I put my flashlight between my teeth and reach for her neck, looking for any way to possibly help her.
Lo screams in frustration. “Get…off of me!”
I know the comment isn’t directed at me based on the way she’s staring up at the ceiling and looking around the room.
I bring the flashlight up to her, careful not to get it in her eyes. When I see her throat tensing—literally held tight like someone is actively squeezing it—I nearly drop the flashlight.
Reality sinks—we’re not protected from a murderous ghost just because we’re here investigating. If all of the other things that have been happening have been ways of scaring us and attempts at hurting us—or worse—then this is not looking good.
And might also offer some insight into why I haven’t heard anything from the boys in what feels like a suspiciously long time.
“ Shit .” I look around the room for something, anything, that can help. But what the hell am I going to use on a hand that doesn’t exist?
I take a deep breath, trying not to completely freak out and make things worse for Lo.
“Let her go!” I shout.
Lo’s face is turning red now. I move the flashlight in a one-eighty to see if maybe whatever is doing this has some kind of physical form. I don’t exactly know what the fuck fighting a ghost off would entail, but I would figure it out for Lo.
“Stevie.” Lo’s eyes well with tears.
A chill cuts through the room, making my blood turn to ice. My mouth goes dry with fear. The temperature drops in LA in the late fall, but never like that. There’s not a breeze in the world that could explain what just passed through me.
It clicks into place all at once—I don’t even have to turn around to know something is looking at us.
But I do it anyway, desperate to prove to myself that there isn’t.
My least favorite feeling is being proven wrong, but right now, I’d take that a million times over being right that something is in this house.
I take shallow, shaky breaths as I bring my flashlight around.
The light trails over Lo’s furniture—her couch, coffee table, and fireplace. And then, tucked back in the corner between the living room and dining room, is something so unexpected I nearly drop my flashlight.
I keep my flashlight fixed on it , whatever the hell it is—this figure who has to be at least seven feet tall.
It’s human-like but simultaneously not. It’s too thin, too tall, too shadowy.
I can see it in front of me, but I also feel like I could put my hand through it if I really wanted to. But I know better than to try that.
Lo suddenly drops to her knees. She gasps for air, as if whatever I’m looking at has finally let go.
It takes a beat for my brain to process. As soon as it sinks in, I’m gripped with a kind of fear that I’ve never felt before. Lo looks up at me, but I can’t say anything. Fear has completely frozen me in place. She turns to look at what I’m looking at.
And then she screams, speaking for both of us.