AllFreeNovel
Share Us
You can see where repairs started, giving us a few solid places to walk. Raven tiptoes over it before hopping on a table. I hold my breath for a moment but when it doesn’t sink through the floor, I finally let it out and follow her lead. Not wanting to put too much weight in one spot, I pick the table next to hers and Eli takes the other side of her. The last thing we need is a hospital trip that ends with police asking questions.
“I found this app,” she starts. “It’s an EVP recorder and also picks up some words we might not catch on audio. So, it’ll pick up any background whispers and play the louder ones for us.”
“That sounds delightful,” I joke as I glance warily around the room. I’m still waiting for a ghost to pop out of the woodwork and forever give me nightmares, but since the touch in the entryway it’s been oddly silent. Unless you count that creepy fucking feeling I can’t shake.
With as much death as that awful night held, there probably are several ghosts around, so I know it’s likely that something will still happen.
Raven clicks the button on the app and sets it down on the table next to her. “If anyone is out here with us, come over and say hello. This device next to me can hear you if you have anything to say.”
“Did you die here?” Eli asks the room. We pause a few moments and in the silence a robotic voice comes from the phone, nearly causing me to fall off the table.
“Fire.” One word was all it takes for Raven’s eyes to light up with excitement. She glances from Eli to me before turning to the phone. That word is far too specific to be a coincidence and my entire body is taken over in a shudder. I can practically picture a ghost standing before us, answering our questions. Yup, I’m not sleeping for a week.
“The fire was awful, we heard more about it tonight. I’m sorry you suffered here,” she tells them. “How many of you are still here?”
Nothing answers and we’re so focused on the soft static coming from the phone that when the scraping of a table sounds off, it’s near deafening. I bite back my scream as the table flips on end and crashes to the floor on the other side of the room. Raven isn’t as lucky, her screech is loud enough, it echoes along with the crash. We all stare in stunned silence for a moment before Eli recovers in a way only he can.
“Well, hello to you, too,” Eli snarks, lightening the mood enough that I feel like I can breathe again. Though, my heart is pounding so hard in my chest I can barely hear as she asks the next question. “Why haven’t you crossed over?”
The robotic answer is immediate. “Pain. Help.”
My heart breaks a little for them. “You can move on, there’s no pain in the light.” I’m not even sure if the light is real, but at this point I’m willing to believe anything.
A loud screeching comes from the recorder for a moment before another round of words comes through. There’s almost a frantic quality to it like we aren’t understanding what it’s trying to convey. “Danger. Crash. Flames.”
Eli
“What the fuck does that mean?” My voice booms through the empty room. It was so intense there at the end that I can now feel my pulse thundering in my ears. This went from a fun hunt to me fearing for our lives. “That felt personal.”
“Shh,” Raven whispers at me. “Let’s see if he’s still here or if you scared him away.”
Even Jayce moves a little closer to us, our eyes eager for the next answer to pop on the dimly lit screen. If we cared about the room being unsafe, we don’t now. Curiosity is a powerful thing.
“Professor Wolf, what do you mean by danger?” Raven asks, with a little quiver in her words. It appears that those words of warning from him didn’t only scare me.
Nothing. Complete and total silence. If there was a spirit here, they are gone now. Maybe that warning was all the energy he had to expel, but either way, we’re left now with more questions than answers.
“Fuck, this is on me. I think I got a little too excited,” I admit, defeated.
“Maybe he just moved on to another room. We have all night to find answers.”
There it is, one of the many reasons I love Raven. For a girl obsessed with black clothes, she has a sunny disposition, cheering up everyone with her easy smile and ability to smooth out any situation. How she can always look on the bright side of things amazes me every day.
“You’re right. I’ll go make sure that the coast is clear in the hall, then we can move to another room. Why don’t you try again? Maybe I pissed him off?”
Raven and Jayce nod as I step away from them, heading towards the door we came in. With care, I navigate the remains of what used to be desks, watching so I don’t bump into any. One, they are heavy as fuck and that would leave a bruise. Two, even if the desk didn’t make any noise, my cussing from hitting into it would.
Just before I reach the wooden door, I get a hint of Raven’s voice that is barely audible but I can make out, ‘Wolf’ and ‘here.’
I’m glad that she took my advice and is trying again. After my outburst, I prayed that I hadn’t blown our chance to converse more. It isn’t just Raven that’s into the hunt anymore, I’m all in now and even Jayce seems convinced which is a feat. That man loves to be stubborn.
I give Raven and Jayce one last glance before I grab the door. All I can make out is a little detail of their faces as Raven holds her phone close to them. As my hand covers the handle there is a white-hot searing pain flooding my body, starting at my palm. What the fuck? I jerk my hand back before I pull out my phone. I use its light to check over my hand. No burn marks, no blisters, it looks normal. Weird. Maybe this place is just getting in my head.
Gingerly, I place one finger on the knob to test it. No discomfort, not even a prickle of heat. You’re losing it, Eli. I shake my head at myself and pocket my phone after turning off the flashlight. There’s a bit more caution in my movements as I grab the knob and twist. It seems that I was worried for no reason. The hinges do squeak a little as I push it open but the remnants of the heat are gone completely.
Even in the wake of the squeaking hinges, the hallway beyond is silent. Poking my head just out of the door frame, I squint as my eyes haven’t readjusted to dark since they were flashed with the beam from my phone.
Usually, I’m not the cautious type. But with Jayce and Raven with me, I have to be a bit more responsible than usual. Jayce isn’t built for jail and Raven’s panic would be astronomical. A night of exploring definitely beats out a night in a cold, dingy jail cell.
