Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Like phantom fingers, the tall grass tickles my ankles as a gust of wind whooshes past me, the prison letting out a tired sigh as I start recording again and approach.
River handles all the research for our locations, per our agreement, but I try to responsibly skim his notes before driving him into the ghostly unknown.
Black Magnolia has a reputation for paranormal activity among the local community, but it’s a spec of dander in the universe compared to haunted hotbeds like The Queen Mary, or the Lizzie Borden House.
The prison’s had first-hand accounts of strange noises, echoing footsteps when no one else was inside, compelling audio captured through Spirit Boxes, that kind of thing.
The front door is something out of a Game of Thrones episode—solid wood, reinforced with metal studs and banding, rust scabbing its hinges. It takes my full body weight and three good pushes to shoulder it open, the wood groaning as I cough from all the displaced dust.
The air inside the atrium is stifling. Thick, humid, and so dense I could drown in it.
It reeks of mildew and acrid metal as I take a step over the threshold, panning the camera across the entrance.
Every hair on my arms stands at attention as my core tenses—the heavy, sinking feeling I always get in my stomach when I’m not alone. The Knowing.
Chills spider crawl up my back and I focus my attention on the viewfinder, like it’s digital armor between me and the energy here. Three steps inside and this place is even creepier than the antique dealer’s storage attic we filmed at last month, which had three separate Ouija Boards.
God, the things I do for River.
If only I’d known this was where we’d end up when I let him convince me to drive him to the abandoned sugar factory back in Kansas—the first time I’d ever believed something like ghosts existed. He’d filmed our visit on his phone and that was the beginning of the end.
He bargained for this show like most kids beg for a dog.
I promise to do all the editing and social media stuff.
You don’t even have to get me a birthday gift this year—well, maybe a lavalier mic would be nice.
I’ll do all the research and script writing and boring admin stuff, you just have to drive me places and film with me.
But watching him in that sugar factory—analyzing every response that came through his app, grinning and gasping when a stray noise jerked his attention over his shoulder—was the first time I’d seen him come alive after I finally came back into his life. I couldn’t say no to that.
And, okay, I usually think it’s fun too.
When I’m not flying solo.
River and I have a rule—well, I have a rule—that we don’t investigate by ourselves.
Up until a few months ago, when he officially got his license, it was out of necessity.
But even after, we kept it up. Too much bias comes into play if you don’t have someone to call you on your assumptions.
Not to mention the underpinning safety concern of stalking around uninhabited places, typically in the dead of night.
He insists he could handle all the recording equipment and tools himself, but as our designated pack mule, I don’t think he really understands what all that entails.
The good thing is I’m not really investigating. I’m filming. I’m not pulling out a single tool, not inviting anything to communicate with me. It’s daylight outside; I have nothing to be concerned about.
Here. Alone. In a haunted prison.
If there’s working electricity here, I wouldn’t have the first idea of how to turn it on. The historical society that owns this place was no help when we reached out. They grudgingly agreed to a date and made us sign waivers and didn’t even supply an emergency contact.
I pan the camera across the sheets of peeling paint on the wall, the towering entrance, the sort of detail shots I know River likes to play with in post-processing.
Sunlight falls like snow from the multi-story front windows, dimming the closer it gets to ground level, and I tiptoe across the shadow line cast by the open door, boot by boot, until it ends.
To my left and right are hallways, and in front of me, another imposing door.
Focusing the lens on the window at the end of the long corridor to the left, I attempt a shoddy Hitchcock zoom.
This downtime is a great opportunity to scope the place out—see if I can make any sense of its layout.
Because the lovely historical society couldn’t be bothered with a map or schematics either.
A low growl echoes behind me and my hair stands on end as my shoe crunches in something on the ground. I whirl, pulse racing.
The noise grows into a rumble, and I curse under my breath. Just a car, idiot. What could River have forgotten? I step toward the window, but this engine sounds far bigger and more grumbly than my Corolla. My heart leaps into my throat.
Is it the police? Did someone call about a trespasser? Even with permission from the historical society, if the cops in this town are anything like the ones in the armpit I grew up in, they’ll be frothing at the mouth to write a ticket just to say they did something for the day.
I scramble to put the camera equipment back in my backpack, preparing to book it. But whoops and hollers drop some of the tension from my shoulders. That’s not exactly law enforcement behavior. I wipe my sweaty palms on the front of my shorts and peek outside again.
It’s a white truck. Big enough to steamroll over me and crush every bone, decked out with what looks like antennae on the roof.
And as it peels into the parking lot, tires squealing with the drift around the curve, I can make out the words on the storm cloud wrap clinging to its side doors: SADDLE UP STORM CHASERS.
My stomach plummets to the depths of Hell as my mouth falls open. You’ve got to be kidding me. I pray to every deity imaginable that the last person I want to see isn’t riding shotgun in the cab of that monstrosity.
The world is small, but it ain’t that small.
The idiots do a donut until the truck is facing back the way it came and my teeth carve pleas into my lower lip. Please don’t be him. Please don’t be him.
But a flash of cinnamon hair tumbles from the cab, male voices and laughter bleeding through the open front door. The door thuds closed, he slings a backpack on his shoulder, turns toward the prison and time stops. My blood coagulates into sludge.
It’s been two years, but no passage of time could weather away the details of that face from my memory.
Charles Rosenhoth is a ghost, and not the kind I go looking for. He’s the kind I run from.
I’m frozen. This isn’t real. Is it safe to sprint into the woods? Can I get out of here undetected? Surely River doesn’t need this footage that bad, right?
This can’t be happening.
Two other men hop out of the truck and the three of them start walking toward the front door. I need a plan. Stat.
There’s a narrow recess on the other side of the stone archway down the left corridor, which I tuck myself into, pressing as tight to the wall as my backpack will let me. If they come inside, hopefully I’ll go undetected until they leave.
I gather my long, dark hair in a ball at my nape, prying it off my clammy neck as I hold my breath. This is so goddamn stupid. I’m hiding. My molars clench in protest.
But after the last time we spoke, I didn’t think I’d ever see Charlie again.
Heavy footfalls, interspersed with chatter, get closer. And closer.
The goddamn Saddle Up Storm Chasers.
I’d be lying if I said I never watched their videos.
The first that comes to mind went so viral, it snuck into my algorithm completely unprompted: TEAM SADDLE UP INTERCEPTS DANGEROUS TORNADO SHIRTLESS!
Wasn’t hard to figure out why that one landed with the masses—three fit, reasonably attractive men putting their lives at risk to drink adrenaline like water and collect scientific data for the betterment of storm tracking while showing off their abs wasn’t a hard sell.
“Look. The door’s already open. Guess we don’t need the crowbar after all,” an unfamiliar male voice says.
Crowbar? Because they couldn’t bother themselves with asking permission first like we did.
Men.
“Maybe it was the ghosts. I hear this place is haunted,” Garrett, another crew member and someone else I haven’t seen in years, says in a tone that suggests he doesn’t believe a lick of it, punctuated by a wooOOOooo. I roll my eyes. How dense do you have to be to not sense you’re not alone here?
A familiar laugh curls its ancient fingers around my heart and I swallow.
A laugh I used to coax out after he had a bad day.
A laugh that would pop out at the most inconvenient of times, like when I was angry at him or when we watched the kindergarteners’ charming Swan Lake performance at Colby Theater.
A laugh he used to tease me with when he had me naked and desperate beneath him.
Charlie.
I try to become one with the dark corner.
“I’m sure my day here will be completely uneventful compared to y’all’s,” Charlie says. “And I can take a ghost or two. Might be a nice distraction, even.”
“You got everything? Backup batteries? Radio?” Garrett asks.
“Yeah, I’m good. You guys get out of here,” Charlie says.
As they exchange their goodbyes, all at once my muscles tighten. Charlie’s coming inside. Alone. If he catches me, it’ll be just us.
For the first time in two years.
Footsteps echo in the atrium, and with a creak, the front door closes, stealing away some of the light.
Charlie shuffles around the room. I stand, stiff as a board.
Their truck engine chugs back into the distance as Garret and the other guy leave.
A deep, metallic clang reverberates through the empty space, and Charlie hums in consideration.
He must’ve opened the door across from the entry.
Fantastic. He’ll head deeper into the prison and I’ll head the fuck out of here.
More footsteps bounce off the walls.
Slowly, they fade into silence. This is my chance. It’s now or never. I steel myself, bracing to sprint as hard and fast as my body can take me, and pray the damn cartilage in my hip behaves until I make it to the tree line.
I lunge from my hiding spot in synchronicity with another foot fall, except this one’s too close . . . and I slam right into him.
Jesus, he’s built out of rock. His chin knocks me in the nose as, on reflex, I stabilize my hands on his taut stomach, and he yelps. We ricochet off each other, two asteroids colliding in space.
“What the—”
“Fuck! Ow.”
Like dark black pools, his pupils dilate as his chest heaves with heavy breaths, taking in the scene before him. He goes completely quiet. Takes a step back. Gapes at me, his full lower lip parting from his top, mouth a crescent moon as he adjusts his glasses.
He blinks a few times, batting those criminally long lashes framing his cracked ice eyes, like he can’t really believe what he’s seeing—who he’s seeing.
He looks the same and yet completely different, or maybe I’m searching for clues he’s changed.
His tousled hair seems longer. Are those new frames?
There seems to be more of him than the last time I saw him, like a fresh layer of muscle’s been laid in my absence.
The barest glint of metal pokes from his collar—a thin gold chain around his neck.
But he’s still tall and slender, still in casual jeans and a tee. Still clean shaven. Still sporting a bruised shade beneath his eyes—still not sleeping enough. Does he still stay up too late reading about other worlds?
“I—” His voice breaks off in a rasp as he shakes his head in slow disbelief and my knees buckle like I’m going to snap in two. “Winona?”
So much for an escape.