There was something in the air now. An expectation. The school was no longer comforting, it was threatening. Darkness normally felt comforting to Sam; she could be herself in darkness, she wasn't being watched by judgemental eyes.

Now, however, Sam couldn't feel Tucker nearby. Danny was in her viewfinder, but he could have been a million miles away. No one to help her.

Her skin prickled. She should have been warm. Instead, she felt like she was standing in a rainstorm in winter. Goosebumps ran along her arms. The fabric of Danny's sweater felt like bindings on her. The fabric grated along her skin. The hair on the back of her neck began to stand up.

Tucker bumped into her. Sam jumped and a gasp sneaked past her mouth. A chill ran up Sam's arm and up her neck. It was like static across her flesh.

The sage!

The stray thought broke though, and with an objective in mind, Sam acted. She rushed forward. "Danny!" Her shout, whose loudness had shocked even her, didn't affect him at all. She ran forward and tried to look at his face. The darkness in the room made that impossible. Remembering the camera in her hand, she brought it up and looked at her friend.

He was staring off into space. Completely unresponsive.

Sam whipped the camera around and found the sage on the table. She picked it up, the dried herbs crinkled in her grip. With a closed fist, she held out her arm and fumbled until she found Danny's hand. She pressed the sage into his hand, and he instinctively grabbed it. With a now free hand, she grabbed his wrist and shook his arm. "Danny!" She begged.

He shuddered. The shaking flooded down his body and threatened to dislodge Sam's grip. "Sam?" he queried when her grip tightened. He blinked as if waking up from a deep sleep and ran his free hand down his face. "Ugh, sorry, I think I-"

"Danny, don't you ever do that again!" Sam snapped. She slipped her hand from his wrist down to his hand and tightened his grip on the sage. In the darkness, the sounds of the sage leaves rubbing together was clear to all. "After all that crap you gave me about not having a charm on me, you just dropped yours?"

Danny shrugged, as if what he just did was no big deal, and gave her a weak smile. "Sorry, but like I said, she doesn't feel malevolent." He rubbed the back of his neck, a gesture that was so very Danny but right now it infuriated her. This wasn't the first time Danny had done something irresponsible, and she'd never be able to forgive herself if he once again did something that got him hurt because of one of her ideas.

He refused to look at her, instead casting his gaze towards the kitchen. "I just wanted to give her a chance, ya know?"

"Dude, this… this doesn't feel peaceful , man," Tucker said. Sam heard his feet shuffling over to them. She looked over with her camera and saw him approaching. He was looking around with the camera too, no longer just using the thermal camera.

Danny shifted his arm around so that he could grab Sam's arm. He normally was cold, but compared to the air in the room, his touch felt like fire. He gently squeezed her arm. Once. Twice. He let go and Sam realized that she had let go herself. She reached for him before pulling back. Her hand found it's way to her waistband and found the charm she was carrying herself.

She pressed the charm against her skin. The stars of anise inside it dug into her skin; it was painful, but it was comforting. The chill abated slightly. She took a deep breath. "Okay… Okay…" She looked at Danny. "Well, I guess this is the best time…"

Tucker groaned. "Let me state this right now: I hate you guys for this. I really do."

Danny chuckled and turned toward him. "Come on, where is that excitement you had when you got a new piece of technology?'

Tucker whirled on him. "That was before someone decided to supercharge the ghost here!"

Sam reached out and grabbed Tucker and pulled him forward. "Come on… we're burning moonlight."

Tucker groaned again. "Alright, alright." He patted Danny on the shoulder. "You go first-"

Danny jerked away from Tucker. "Dude!"

The action made Tucker's eyes go wide, and Sam remembered that Tucker had an iron charm, meant to repel spirits, unlike hers, which was meant to calm them. "Right, sorry." Tucker apologized, holding up a hand. "But uh… you go first, since you think she isn't evil."

Danny let out a long-suffering sigh. "Alright," he said, walking forward.

Sam reached out and grabbed the back of his shirt. "Wait, wait," she said, pulling him back. She wasn't sure if she was talking to him, or herself. There was a moment of silence while Sam realized what she wanted "I'll go first," she ordered. "You already did a lot."

She took a deep breath and stepped around Danny. She made it two steps before the chill started coming back in. Even though the three of them were so close together, it felt like they were all farther away. "That being said…"

"I got you," Danny said, reaching out and grabbing the back of Sam's sweater, or rather his sweater that she was wearing. Sam let out a breath she wasn't aware she was holding. Though she was glad he had warned her ahead of time. She didn't know what she would have done if he hadn't.

But knowing he was right there behind her was comforting. Even if she didn't want to admit it.

Good thing was, she didn't have to.

It was somewhat difficult, walking around in the darkness with just the tiny LCD screen acting as their eyes with the trace amount of light coming through the windows, but slowly they weaved their way through the assorted tables and chairs that were left in the cafeteria.

Sam led the three of them into the kitchen. The minimal light they had from the outside windows in the cafeteria was not present at all in here. It was completely pitch black.

"So, Sam," Tucker began, a little chuckle in his voice. "Does this remind you of home?"

Danny wasn't laughing aloud, but Sam could feel him shaking as he tried not to laugh. Sam couldn't help but laugh herself. The question wasn't even that funny, but the levity was needed.

Anything was better than the oppressive silence that was bearing down on them.

"Two things Tucker," Sam said, turning around just slightly. Making sure that Danny didn't have to let go of her. "One, it's not dark enough. Two, can you go stand over there in the corner near the exit?"

"Sure, send me off on my own. If I get brutally murdered, you won't need to do any more investigations, I'll be haunting you." Despite his complaints, he walked over towards the back of the kitchen.

"Quit whining," she scoffed, but she understood his trepidation. There was something charged in the air here. It had been ever since Danny provoked the spirit here. She didn't want him going off alone either, but it would probably make the ghost easier to interact with.

She sighed and turned toward Danny. "Danny, can you stand over by where they serve the food?" she asked. She watched him nod through the video camera and he walked over to a spot on the opposite side of the room from Tucker. She shivered as she became distinctly aware he was no longer within arms' reach.

Not that unusual, though; Danny always had an aura when he walked into a room that made you aware of where he was.

"Okay guys," Sam said, turning toward a shelf and putting the video camera she was holding on it. She twisted the viewfinder around so she could see herself in the screen. She turned and faced the darkness. "Grab your recorders and pull them out. I want to do an E.V.P. session."

There was shuffling as Danny and Tucker patted themselves down to find where they had put the recorder, and a clatter as Tucker dropped his while trying to hold the thermal camera and the video camera at the same time. "Gah!" he grumbled. Sam heard him put down one of the things in his hands before more scuffling. "Okay, I got it, what exactly are we doing?"

"An E.V.P. ses-"

"No, no, I heard you fine, I just don't know what that is."

Danny spoke up, his voice cutting across the room sharply. "It's short for electronic voice phenomenon, we're going to ask questions and just record, sometimes you'll hear voices in the recording that you didn't hear yourself." A red light appeared in his direction and started waving about. "Mine's recording now."

Sam's thumb slid across the device and found the giant recording button and she pressed it, making her own red light appear. "I'm recording now too."

"Hold on a second," Tucker said. The red light appeared and it shifted around. There was a clack and the light became still. There was a bit more shifting and then Tucker said, "Alright, I'm recording, I just put it down on the table. Is that okay?"

Sam nodded out of habit, before remembering that he probably couldn't see her. "Yeah, that's fine." She paused, running down a mental checklist. Questions she wanted to ask, points she needed to tell Tucker.

Danny didn't need a reminder; his parents did this on their own time quite often.

"Okay, so remember, try not to move at all. We don't want to make any noise that might confuse us later."

"Got it," Danny agreed.

Tucker followed up a moment later. "No noise. Understood."

"Okay," Sam began. She took a breath and asked loudly and clearly, "Is there anyone else in here with us?" Then she counted to six slowly in her head. She resisted an urge to chew on her lip, worried that even that might possibly cover a response in the recording. "Were you a teacher here?"

As silence rang out as she waited out the silence again. A stray thought passed through her mind that there was going to be a lot of cut time between these. Her thoughts were interrupted when Danny asked a question, "Were you a student?"

Sam focused this time, and waited another six seconds before asking another question. "Were you a volunteer?" About four seconds into the pause, Danny jumped. "Danny, are you moving?" Sam called out.

"I think we should play it back." Not exactly the answer Sam wanted, but that was definitely better than she had expected. "Right now."

"I'll do it! You guys keep rolling!" Excitedly, Sam hit the stop button and hit the playback button. Their own voices came back to them, but Sam didn't want to fast forward through anything in case she missed something.

Nothing came up until she heard her own voice ask, "Were you a volunteer?"

Static blared back from the recorder. Crackling over the pounding of her heartbeat. Then the static broke.

"Lunch lady."

It was crisp. Not quite clear, it was too rough to be that. It was like someone was strained. But the sharpness made Sam jerk upright.

She wasn't the only one. "Jesus!" Tucker shouted. Sam heard him take a couple of steps back. "What was that?"

"That's a class A, wow," Danny muttered, and Sam had to hold back an urge to squeal. Danny was right, and it was the first thing that happened tonight. Adrenaline filled her veins and she had to fight the urge to move, to avoid contaminating the recordings that Danny and Tucker were still making.

"Class A?" Tucker repeated. "Guys, I'm not goth, nor do I have parents who help people do this as a living. Come on, help a guy keep up."

"A class A E.V.P is one that comes through clearly, that someone doesn't need to work to understand," Danny explained. "A class B would be one that is really distinct, but you can't quite understand. Like, you'd have to work to understand it it. That's what my parents try to help people with, cleaning up the audio so they can make it easier to hear."

Sam couldn't help herself and chimed in when Danny stopped. "There's also class C, something unexplainable, like hearing footsteps or a mechanical sound in the background. That's why I actually asked Danny if he was moving. If he wasn't, it might have been paranormal, but we'd have to work to debunk it."

Sam heard Danny shift to her. "You've been wanting to do this for a while, huh?" he chuckled.

"Shut it," Sam said. There was no real bite behind it, but how could she not be interested. Two years ago, something happened. It would haunt her forever, seeing Danny dead on the ground like that.

It took months for her not to break out crying randomly when she'd remember it.

And even longer for her to finally listen to Danny when he told her it wasn't her fault.

But since then, she's wondered.

What exactly was out there?

"Hey, lunch lady," Tucker began, interrupting Sam's thoughts, "Any chance I can get a steak?"

Sam bit her tongue and counted to six before responding. "Tucker, be serious!"

"Uh… Sam?" Danny broke in. He picked up his recorder and hit play. He proceeded to fast forward a bit to the start of Tucker's question.

There was a pause, four seconds, and then Sam heard the response. "Eat your vegetables."

Sam couldn't help it. She burst out laughing. "Ha! See Tucker! You need to add more to your diet!"

"Nuh-uh uh!" Tucker started, and Sam didn't need to see him wagging his finger at her. They had this exact same conversation during lunch. "That's gotta' be that class B you were talking about. I heard 'Eat your tables' not vegetables."

Sam laughed. Tucker complaining about vegetables was always good for a laugh, and she was already giddy by the responses on the recorder. "Maybe you should focus on a sustainable diet, instead of shoving an ungodly number of animals down your throat."

Danny coughed. "Uh, guys?"

Sam couldn't see Tucker, but she could definitely hear him. "Oh, don't you start getting all high and mighty on me! I am a proud carnivore! I do not eat what my food eats! See these?" She didn't. It was pitch black in here. "These are canines! They are meant to tear and devour meat!"

Sam continued the argument. "Well, you see, if you look a little past those, you'll see you have molars, which are meant for chewing. You can get all the protein and fiber you need from vegetables and help save the planet if you'd-"

"GUYS!" Danny shouted, shocking the two of them out of their play argument. "Guys, you're upsetting her."

Tucker laughed. "Danny… she's a ghost, what's she gonna do?" The next words out of Tucker's mouth were, "HOLY SHIT!"

A cacophony of sound sent ice up Sam's spine. She froze, like a deer in headlights. She couldn't see a thing at all in the darkness, and her heart pounded in her ears.

"What was that?" Tucker shouted.

"You were the one who was asking what she'd do!?"

Sam turned around and found the camera she had set up behind her. She flipped the screen around so she could use it as her eyes once again and panned along the room. Danny and Tucker were both looking down and she followed their gaze to see silverware scattered along the ground.

"What happened? I didn't see."

"I'm coming over to you," Danny said, bringing his camera around. Sam heard Tucker gingerly stepping over the silverware. Tucker put a hand on her shoulder as he approached and Danny leaned against her and put his camera up.

He started playing back the video and she could see Tucker raising his lips to show off the canine teeth he was so proud of, and a moment later, a box from a shelf that Sam wasn't even aware was there tumbled off and silverware scattered around the floor.

"Dude…" Tucker began, "That uhh… that could have just fallen, right?"

Danny rewound the tape and played it frame by frame. "Look at it," he said, pointing at the box. "Watch it again, closer this time." This time, with Sam knowing what to look for, she saw that the box didn't just tip over, but had spun slightly before falling. "That didn't just fall."

Sam let out a slow breath. "Wow… that's…" She struggled for a moment, trying to come up with words. "Wow…"

Tucker shifted and turned toward the room. "Alright! I'll eat my vegetables!"

If there was a response to that, it wouldn't have been heard over Sam laughing.

After that, no matter how much they poked and prodded the lunch lady to do something more, she didn't react. She had plenty of time too – finding all the silverware that had scattered across the floor took a long time in the dark, and Sam wouldn't let them turn on the lights. Danny mentioned that she had probably used up a lot of energy and couldn't do anything after that.

And Tucker was not going to ask Danny to let her take more energy from him.

Of course, that meant that they had to move on to something else. Sam had said she also wanted to check out some other areas of the school. Though if Tucker found any other paranormal evidence, he was going to throw himself out the nearest window.

The ghost throwing a box at him was enough, thank you very much.

Tucker walked down the hall, using the night vision on the camera to guide himself down toward the teacher's lounge. Tucker stood in front of the door and turned the camera toward himself. "The teacher's lounge…" he mused, logging his thoughts for the camera. "I've heard a LOT of rumors about the teacher's lounge, some of them crazier than others. Freshman year, some senior told me that kids would enter and never come out. That sort of thing. But… today..." A smile broke out onto his face. "I am finding out if there is actually an all-you-can-eat meat buffet in there!"

With that, he turned the camera around and reached out for the door and twisted the handle.

Locked.

"Oh… Sam's gonna hate that." He twisted it a few more times just to dispel any doubts it was truly locked. Lancer had said that they weren't supposed to go into any locked rooms, and no matter how much Sam wanted to catch something paranormal on her cameras, Tucker did not want detention or whatnot for going somewhere he wasn't supposed to.

He looked at his camera. "I guess I'm not gonna find out today." He started walking away.

He tried to think of where to go next. Danny was spending some time near the supposedly haunted locker, and Sam was checking out the library. Sam had planned on them being alone for an hour or two, but since Danny was alone, maybe he should join him.

Danny shouldn't be left alone here.

A thud sounded behind him, and Tucker jumped. Turning around, he saw the source.

The door to the teacher's lounge was swinging open.

"Oh, God damn it…"