We finally reached Clarksville at about five o' clock and checked into a hotel before heading over to the residence. Jason, Grant, and Steve headed inside to do the tour while the rest of us unloaded the equipment and then waited outside. I stood by silently as everyone else talked. I was dead tired because I had less than three hours of sleep due to me waking everyone up. I tried my hardest not to think about the nightmare because it always sent a shiver up my spine. It had been recurring for over a month now and I had no idea what twisted part of my brain it had came from. It wasn't long before Tango was nudging me with his elbow.
"Are you OK?" he asked, breaking away from the others' conversation. I just nodded. He raised an eyebrow. "You sure?"
"I'm tired," I said. I think I looked tired, too. I had been yawning since the moment I woke up and kept drinking caffeine while I was driving. I sidled up to Tango and I leaned my head on his shoulder. "Don't mind me…going to sleep now."
"Okay," said Tango, laughing awkwardly. I stayed there for a minute and then remembered the nightmare and thought better of it.
"Well, not tired anymore!" I said, pulling away from Tango. He gave me a strange look, nodded, and then turned back to the conversation. I listened in and gawked at what they were saying.
"So the marshmallow thing works?" Brian was asking Dustin.
"Ohh, yeah, feeding them marshmallows works like a charm!" said Dustin, nodding fervently. "And the way they eat it is so hot." I looked at Donna to see if she could fill me in, but I saw that her face was red and she was looking embarrassed.
"And the velvet glove thing? What about that?" asked Tango. What was this, Ask Dustin?
"Oh my god, dude, buy your girlfriend some velvet gloves! They're heaven." said Dustin, grinning ear to ear. Something clicked in my head. Dustin's eggnog blog. I quickly scooted out of the circle in disgust. Donna closely followed.
"I think I need my ears cleaned out," I complained.
"I think I need my brain cleaned out!" said Donna. "Guys are so embarrassing!" We both turned to look at the guys. They were all grinning and listening to every word Dustin had to say. We rolled our eyes.
"Wanna talk about Days of Our Lives?"
"Oooh! Let's!"
Donna and I stayed in the van monitoring the computers while the rest of the team investigated. We kept hearing a female voice on the audio in the room where Jay and Grant were, but they said that they didn't hear anyone and no one was there. Donna tried helping them on the walkie-talkie.
"Can you hear what it's saying?" asked Grant.
"No, it's sort of mumbled," said Donna. She listened to them do EVP work while I kept an eye on the video. Nothing seemed to be happening except Brian falling asleep in the master bedroom.
"Keep those eyes open, Weezy!" I said to him on the walkie-talkie. His head jerked up and Steve frowned at him and started to tell him off even though I couldn't really hear.
"Well, Grant and I will head out there so you gals can come see if you find anything," said Jason.
We traded places with Jason and Grant and went into the upstairs family room where they had been at. When we first walked in it had been a comfortable temperature but as soon as we sat on the couch, the temperature dropped all of a sudden. Donna took out the handheld thermometer and I shined the flashlight on it so we could see the screen.
"Whoa," I said, my eyes widening. It had dropped to about 65 degrees and was creeping lower.
"It's almost like Jay and Grant need to get back here with the thermal," said Donna. I took out an EMF detector and took a look at it.
"What the fuck?!" I exclaimed, nearly dropping it in surprise. Beside me Donna winced. I bet Grant did, too, in the van listening on audio. "Sorry, guys, but this is thing is seriously freaking out!" I showed Donna. The EMF reading was fluctuating frantically. "It's seriously going from, like, 100…then down to 0.9…and it flashes so fast you can barely read it!" Steve and Brian walked in.
"Where is it?" asked Brian, aiming a video camera at us. I held up the EMF detector and he zoomed in on its screen. "Dude, look at it!" He took it from me and showed Steve. Meanwhile, I sat shivering and Donna rubbed her arms and let out a chilled breath. The temperature in the room was steadily dropping.
"I'm starting to get a bad feeling in here," said Donna nervously. All of a sudden, it went pitch black. I heard Steve curse. I frowned and tapped my flashlight against the palm of my hand, but it didn't come back on.
"The frickin' camera went dead!" said Brian. I tried to see blindly into the darkness, but to no avail. Then—
"OW!" I yelled. "What the freak? That was the inside of my thigh!"
"What? What happened?" asked Donna.
"One of the guys bumped into my thigh or something," I said.
"Wasn't me," said Brian's voice on the other side of Donna.
"I'm right here on the armchair," said Steve from across the room. I growled a little and rubbed at my thigh through my jeans. It was stinging.
"Liars," I muttered.
"So why are we sitting in the dark?" Steve asked. "Didn't the flashlights have new batteries when we came in?"
"Dude, I replaced the batteries in every one of them." said Brian. "And there were brand new Energizers in this camera."
"This doesn't make sense," said Donna.
"If there is a presence here, can you make yourself known?" asked Steve after a few moments of silence. A sharp stinging hit my right cheek.
"Ow!" I said again. "Something just hit my cheek now!"
"Um…could we go to the van and get new batteries?" said Donna. "I feel really uncomfortable in this room."
BANG!
Donna and I screamed.
"What was that?!" said Brian.
"That hurt!" we heard a voice say from out in the hallway. We saw a flashlight beam and then Dustin and Tango appeared in the doorway. Tango was rubbing his elbow and looking cross. "What's up, guys?"
"All of our equipment just shut off, batteries and everything," said Steve. He sighed. "Come on, let's go." We all trekked outside to the van. Tango and Dustin acted like our lanterns until we got to the front door. Jason threw open the doors to the van looking pissed. Really pissed.
"What is this, some sort of picnic?" he said. "Why weren't you guys answering your walkie-talkies?" We all looked dumbstruck.
"We…We didn't hear anything," said Brian.
"All our batteries went dead except for Dave's and Dustin's," said Steve.
"The family room probably hit about 50 degrees when we left," said Donna. Jason and Grant exchanged a look.
"We'll probably head up there with the thermal," said Grant, picking it up.
"This sucks," grumbled Brian, rummaging around the van for batteries. Donna hopped in to help.
"Dang it!" I said, rubbing my thigh where it hurt. Steve was walking past, but then stopped to gawk at me. I froze, and then gawked at him gawking at me.
"Felina…" He came to stand over me and cupped my face with one hand. My eyes widened and I stayed stock still where I was.
"S-Steve?" His face was rather close to mine and my stomach kept flipping in a weird way that had nothing to do with nerves.
"You're bleeding," he said, gently touching the right side of my face. I shut my eyes and winced. "Sorry."
"That's okay," I said, giving a small smile. I saw his eyes drop down to my mouth and I licked my lips somewhat nervously. His eyes flickered for a moment and he almost seemed to be pulling me closer.
"Hey, Steve, where's the batteries?" yelled Brian from inside the van. We both jumped and he let go of me.
"Um…uh…I'll get a band-aid for that," Steve said awkwardly. After he climbed into the van I let out a deep breath.
Surely he had heard my heart beating ten miles a minute.