“I found it,” Jefferson cut in.
I was sure he hadn’t heard a single word of our conversation. He was in the zone.
Unplugging the headphones from the computer, he alienated the section of audio, looped it, and cued it up for us.
“This is Jefferson on B deck. September third, at about a quarter to three,” his recorded voice said, instantly bringing me back to that space outside of the pool.
“I didn’t have a camera with me,” he said as we listened. “Just the audio recorder.”
I heard a few muffled footfalls on the carpet over the ambient sounds that suddenly seemed deafening. How could a lack of noise be so grating to the ear?
“I stopped right there,” he narrated, his large eyes focused on the wall. “And in a second you’ll hear it.”
Over the constant hum of the recording, I heard what sounded like glasses clinking. I looked over at Jefferson, who met my eyes and nodded, indicating he’d heard it too, and while I looked down to concentrate on the rest of the recording, he kept his eyes locked on me. Making sure I heard the voice, I guessed.
There was the sound of fabric rubbing against the microphone, and a split second later a low and almost inaudible sentence could be heard.
“No way!” Brighton exclaimed. “Play it again.”
Jefferson didn’t need to be told twice. He immediately cued up the recording to the exact place the sentence began, this time closing his eyes as he listened.
There was no mistaking the fact that the cadence and tone of the sound was a spoken sentence, but it was nearly impossible to decipher what it was saying.
“I can’t make it out.” Deacon squinted his eyes through his glasses, as if somehow that would help him. “One more time, mate.”
Jefferson played the clip again, this time with all of us holding our breath as we listened, the volume turned up so loud that the ambient sound hurt my ears. The beginning of the sentence was practically a lost cause, but the last four syllables gave me hope and I immediately brought my finger up to my lips, not wanting the group to say anything while I picked the phrase out of the jumble of words. I could almost make it out.
“Meeting her there?” I asked.
“Meeting her there,” Brighton repeated as Jefferson played the recording again.
“Or we might be grasping at straws,” Deacon said. “And it’s just something else.”
“I shouldn’t have said anything,” I said guiltily. “That was probably the worst thing I could have done because now that’s all you’ll hear when you listen to the clip.”
“But that’s not a problem if you’re right.” Brighton was practically beaming. “I can’t believe we’ve been on this ship for two hours and we’ve already gotten a solid EVP!”
“And you wanted to go to bed,” I said.
“You were right, I was wrong,” Brighton said.
“You’re the best, we’re the worst,” Deacon added.
“You’re smart, I’m dumb,” Brighton continued, reciting the same bit I’d heard a million times before.
“You’re—”
“Okay, apology accepted,” I interrupted, knowing the two of them could go on like that forever.
“And just for those who might not know . . . EVP is . . .” Deacon let his words trail off.
“You seriously need to learn the lingo if we’re going to keep you on this team,” I said. “Electronic voice phenomenon.”
“We really caught evidence,” Jefferson said quietly, looking awestruck. “We really did it. We found something.”
He looked over at us and let out a short laugh, the smile lingering on his lips. Plugging the headphones back in, he pushed play on the computer and closed his eyes, listening to our discovery over and over again.
“He’s like a kid on Christmas,” I said, shaking my head.
It was the happiest I’d ever seen Jefferson.
“This doesn’t really help us figure out where we’re supposed to go next, but we have another entire night here to gather more evidence.” Brighton pulled her knees up to her chest, looking quite proud of our accomplishment. “And tomorrow night we’ll have hours and hours to investigate.”
“Not to mention setting up the cameras in our rooms tonight,” Deacon added.
“Oh . . . right,” I said, almost forgetting for a moment that I’d be sleeping in my creepy windowless room alone.
Odds were I wasn’t going to be doing much sleeping, no matter how tired I was from the long drive from Portland and the investigation.
“We only have like, four hours, until the sun comes up,” Brighton said. “You’ll be fine.”
Again, it was easy for her to say, in her nice fancy room.
“I don’t have windows in my room,” I reminded her. “It’ll be pitch black in there at noon.” I was trying to act put out, but in all honesty, I was scared out of my mind.
“Oy,” Deacon said, hitting his cousin on the arm and bringing him out of his apparent state of ecstasy.
“What?” Jefferson asked, looking genuinely confused, as if we had just woken him from a nap.
“We need to sleep,” Brighton said. “And you guys are all sitting on my bed.”
Deacon and I stood to leave, but Jefferson continued to sit there with the headphones in his hand, looking like someone had just run over his puppy.
“But the sound clip . . .”.
“It’ll be there in the morning, sweetie,” Brighton said, patting his shoulder sympathetically and slowly taking the headphones from his fingers.
“I’m sure I can figure out the rest of the sentence if you just give me a minute,” he tried again, almost pleading.
It was like watching a little kid attempting to get out of bedtime.
“We have a long day ahead of us.” I grabbed his hand and pulled him up off the bed. “And you need to leave Brighton alone so she can get some sleep. You know how she gets when she’s tired.”
“I heard that,” she said, though she was already falling back into her pile of fluffy pillows with a smile on her face.
“But the tape,” he tried again, furrowing his brow in a way that was actually pretty adorable.
Not that I would ever admit that to anyone.
“Come on,” I said, still holding his hand and pulling him out of the cabin. “Don’t forget to set up your camera,” I called to Brighton before closing the door and finally releasing Jefferson.
“What deck are you on, Sadie?” Deacon asked. “I’ll be a gentleman and walk you to your room.” He grinned at me with the same goofy grin he usually wore.
“I’m on B deck,” I told him, widening my eyes theatrically. “You know, the one where our awesome group found a voice?”
“And caught it on tape,” he added, sounding slightly less skeptical. “But forget that. I’m on this level. You can walk yourself down.”
“You’re so gallant, Deacon,” I said, sarcastically.
“I’m sure Jefferson would be happy to go with you, since he’s also on B deck.”
I looked over at the other Parrish boy, who seemed dazed by our discovery. He still wasn’t listening to a word we said. He just stood there pulling on his suspenders and staring off into space.
“On second thought, you might have to walk him to his room. I’m not sure he even knows where he is right now.”
“Great.” I sighed. “Night, Deacon.”
“Night, Sadie.” He gave me an apologetic look and parted ways at the staircase.
“Come on, you useless boy.” I grabbed Jefferson’s hand once more and led him down the staircase to the empty B deck, feeling like the silence was eerie, no matter how good it was for our investigations.
“What room are you in?” I asked him, looking at the plaque on the wall that listed the room numbers.
“Huh?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at me as if he just realized I was there.
“Never mind.” I pulled his room key from h
is vest pocket and located the number on it. There was no way I’d get any help from him tonight. He was too excited about our discovery. I was excited too, of course; I just happened to be human and couldn’t run on zero sleep after a long drive.
I practically dumped him in front of his room, handing him the key card and giving him a skeptical look.
“You do remember how to use this, right?” I asked.
“Funny,” he said after an unnaturally long pause. “I’m an expert with keys. Hence how it was laughably easy for me to get one to your apartment.”
I ignored his statement, like I usually did.
“I’m just down the hall if you need me,” I said, turning to leave and trying to focus on how tired I was, rather than how scared I was to be in my hotel room alone.
“Sadie?” Jefferson asked, stopping me before I’d gotten far.
“Yeah?”
“We actually did it,” he said, the smile back on his face. “We found evidence.”
I smiled over at him. I knew he was frustrating and annoying most of the time, but I just couldn’t help it—his excitement was infectious.
“We’re kind of great, huh?” he asked, still smiling.
“Yeah, Jefferson,” I said. “We kind of are.”
Chapter 6
It was amazing how loud silence could be.
Compared to the average person, I was pretty tough when it came to facing paranormal activity. I mean, I’d made it my hobby to willingly walk into haunted locations and ask ghosts to come talk to me. But lying in bed with my covers pulled up to my eyes, I was feeling a lot less tough than I wanted to now that I was without the earpiece that linked me to my friends.
My room was pitch black except for the small flashing red light on the camera I had aimed at my bed. When it blinked on for just a second, I could briefly see my room in the dim crimson glow, the light illuminating the darkest corners.
Since I couldn’t seem to sleep, I somehow ended up counting seconds between flashes of light. It usually ran about ten seconds from blink to blink, and I found myself holding my breath in those ten seconds of darkness, just waiting for that split second of illumination to reassure me there was nothing in my room.
The worst part of the entire situation was that my being terrified was being caught on camera at that very moment, so I had to at least pretend like I wasn’t scared out of my mind. I also had to think about how exhausted I would be tomorrow if I didn’t get any sleep tonight. We had a full night of investigating ahead of us, and knowing the Parrish boys, they’d want to scope things out during the day as well, which meant I’d get absolutely no sleep.
“I could listen to music,” I whispered to the dark room. Maybe putting my headphones in would help me sleep.
At least then I wouldn’t have to just lie there and wait for the sounds of a ghostly laugh or creaking floorboard.
I leaned over and let my hand roam over the nightstand, feeling for my purse. The bed sheets ruffled as I moved, but the sound was magnified in the crushing silence of the room. When I finally made contact with my monstrously big purse, I let my fingers explore the bottomless interior until I successfully pulled my phone and headphones from the mess.
I sighed deeply, wishing I wasn’t such a baby, and rolled back over in bed, staring at the indistinguishable ceiling. I turned the phone on, the screen practically blinding me in the darkness as I scrolled through playlists, looking for a song. Somehow, my mellow sleep mix didn’t seem like it would do the trick tonight. I’d need something a bit louder; something that would drown out the nonexistent noises I would invent. Maybe some Panic! at the Disco.
Just as my finger hovered over my favorite band’s name, I heard something—a sigh that materialized in the corner of the room near my bathroom door.
Had I been a normal person, I would have bolted out of bed and turned on the light immediately. Instead, I slowly pulled out my headphones, stayed frozen on my back, my eyes as big as Jefferson’s as my phone light turned itself off and I counted seconds in between camera flashes.
I held my breath for ten seconds, my eyes locked on the direction the sigh had come from as I waited for that red camera light to ease my overactive imagination. My phone was in my shaking hands, but in my panic, I couldn’t quite remember how to turn the flashlight on so I stayed still.
I felt my eyes drying out as I kept them open in the darkness. I felt my pulse in my fingertips where they were pressed against the phone. I felt the hair stand up on the back of my neck.
The only sound I could hear in the dark room was my own heart. All I could think was, This is the longest ten seconds of my life.
And then the red light flashed on, revealing nothing more than an empty corner of the room and proving to me just how crazy I was.
The breath I held came out of my mouth in a huge rush, relief and warmth flowing through my body as I put my earbuds back in. I had to laugh at myself; it was the only way I’d keep from being disappointed in what a baby I’d been. At least on camera the boys wouldn’t be able to tell I’d been holding my breath and counting seconds, so I had that going for me.
Illuminating my phone screen once more and blacking out the world around me, I pushed play on “Nearly Witches,” a song that was probably a terrible choice for my current situation. Still, I loved a good ironic twist.
Smiling to myself and ready to give sleeping my best try, I rolled over onto my side, facing the closed bathroom door. I could do it. I could close my eyes and go to sleep now.
Except just as I was about to give in to my exhaustion, the light in the bathroom turned on.
~
“Jefferson!” I banged my fist on his door frantically, looking over my shoulder every five seconds.
I would have been worried about waking other hotel guests up but the ship was practically empty during the week, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there was no one staying in the rooms between Jefferson’s and mine.
“Jefferson!” I yelled again, continuing to pound my fists on his door. I shivered in my tank top and shorts. I really needed to get new pajamas.
“What in the world are you doing, you crazy woman?” he asked, opening his door. He rubbed sleep from his eyes with the back of his hand. “Have you lost your bloody mind?”
He was actually wearing pajama pants and a T-shirt.
“There’s something in my bathroom,” I said, looking over my shoulder again.
Somehow I had convinced myself that a ghost would come gliding down the hallway at any moment in a blood-soaked dress, ready to take my head off with a sword . . . or was I mixing ghost stories there?
“Sadie, if this is about some spider, I swear I’ll kill you and won’t feel the slightest bit of remorse.” Sadly, I believed him.
“Jefferson.” I grabbed him by the shoulders and looked up at him intently. “I think it’s a ghost.”
His green eyes widened considerably at this simple statement and suddenly he didn’t seem so annoyed that I had woken him. Instead, he closed the door behind him and ran down the hallway at full speed, his bare feet sounding loudly on the floor.
Flying up to my already open door, he stepped into my room, keeping the light off but taking my room camera off of its tripod and slowly panning around the darkened space.
“It turned my bathroom light on,” I said, standing close behind him.
“It’s off now,” he whispered reverently.
This was what he lived for.
“It must have turned it back off again?” I guessed.
“Hello?” he called quietly, taking one step toward the bathroom door. I was forced to come with him since I was grasping his T-shirt like my life depended on it.
Silence.
“Do you want to talk to us?” he asked, and for the first time since we’d started our group, I wanted to tell him to stop provoking the ghosts.
There was no way I’d sleep now that I knew the ghosts had chosen my room to stay in
.
“You don’t have to be afraid.”
At first I thought Jefferson was talking to me, before realizing he was speaking to whatever disembodied spirit was floating around in my bathroom.
Another step toward the door with me grabbing Jefferson’s arm now, and still more silence.
“We don’t want to hurt you. We just want to talk to you.”
“I don’t,” I mumbled, earning a shushing noise from Jefferson.
He stopped in front of the door, his hand outstretched slightly as if he might open it, but his body was frozen in place. We were both silent, listening, as we held our breath.
“Did anything else happen, Sadie?” Jefferson whispered to me.
“I heard a sigh right by the bathroom door,” I said, glad that the light from the hallway was streaming into the room now so that we weren’t in complete darkness.
“Before or after the light turned on in the bathroom?”
“Before,” I said with a short humorless laugh. “I was out of here in two seconds after the light in the bathroom turned on.”
“Why?” he asked, looking completely baffled.
“I was so excited to tell you,” I said.
“Right,” he responded, not catching my sarcasm at all. “Okay. Here we go.”
Stretching his hand those last few inches, he grasped the doorknob and turned it slowly, pushing the door open with a creak worthy of a horror movie. It swung open into the darkened bathroom, but if we were expecting bloodstained mirrors and corpses in the bathtub, we were sorely disappointed.
“Huh,” I said. “It’s empty.”
“What did you expect?” Jefferson asked, managing to sound condescending and amused all at the same time.
We both walked into the small dark bathroom, and even though I wasn’t nearly as scared as I had been a moment ago, there was no way I was letting go of Jefferson’s arm, no matter how embarrassing it was to be grasping it so tightly.
“Just because we don’t see someone here doesn’t mean they aren’t with us.”