CHAPTER 3: The Tremont is hunted!

Griffin point of view:

After my dad´s lecture, Harper went home. My dad, the twins and I cleaned the living room while mom rested upstairs. Luckily, not so many things are broken. We only have to replace the clock, the flowerpot and the painting.

While mom´s in her bedroom and dad prepares dinner, I gather the twins outside. I tell them about Nick, that he told us the fear of ghosts will intensify because of a girl´s video, people won´t stay at The Tremont, the reopening will fail, and our parent´s dream will be crushed.

"Wow, you and Harper have a son?" Wyatt looks astonished.

"That´s not the point, Wyatt!"

"What should we do?" Zoey asks.

"Harper and I will time travel to last night and stop her."

"I´m coming with you."

"No, Zoey. I need you to stay here and cover us. Don´t let dad find out."

"Dad wants to close the bunker, doesn´t he?" Wyatt guesses.

"He does. He won´t do it soon, he thinks we want some old toys as a keepsake, you should tell him you want some, too. That way, he´ll wait for us to get what we want, then, clean it all up, and close it."

"Great, we have time, then!" Zoey celebrates.

"When will you go?"

"Tonight."

After dinner, Zoey and Wyatt come to my room and we make a plan. They´ll watch my parents and distract them if it´s necessary, while Harper and I sneak out to the bunker.

"Watch this!" Wyatt shows us his phone. "The video is uploaded!"

It was filmed behind the window, the drapes don´t let us see the whole scene, but is enough to see the ghost lifting my mom in the air, and my dad being hit by the coffee table, which was flying straight to his head, but hit his hand instead. I feel goosebumps. I didn´t know about that!

When the ambulance arrives, the girl goes down the porch´s stairs and hide between the bushes. That explains why we didn´t see her. The video shows some doctors carrying my mom on a stretcher and getting her in the ambulance. My dad and Jess go with her. That´s when the twins, Topher, Savannah, Harper and I run inside. There are about 5 minutes of the video in which nothing is seen, the girl runs from window to window trying to record what´s going on, but she only does it once we get to the living room again. This is wild. Judge Walker´s voice is heard, saying he wants The Tremont to himself, threating us, but he´s not seen. Even though Savannah is not by the window, we can clearly see her face on the video. How could we explain that? Is she a friend who happens to look like Savannah Dillon? Where is she from? Why has no one seen her at school?

"Did you watch the video?" I text Harper. "We need to fix this."

"I can´t go tonight, Griff. My mom´s watching me. You know she can be intense."

"Crap! What if I go alone?"

"No! It´s dangerous! We must go together!"

"You think you can get here tomorrow?"

"Yes, my mom wants to help your parents to fix the hotel. We can sneak out while they are distracted."

"Cool. See you tomorrow. Good night."

"Good night."

It would be nice to solve this problem tonight. But honestly, I´m exhausted and need to sleep. These last days were insane. If we could fight a ghost, avoid Topher being in a coma, avoid my mom losing her mind, and… well, avoid my death, we can solve this. It´s just a video, not big deal. It can wait until tomorrow, right?

Ben point of view:

While I´m preparing breakfast Sarah shows up in the kitchen.

"I´ll take care of it, take a sit." I tell her when I see her grabbing the dishes.

"I can take some dishes to the table, Ben, it´s not that hard."

"I know! But you´ve been through a lot, you should rest."

"I appreciate the concern, honey, but believe me, I´m fine."

"It´s the least I can do. I´m sorry I didn´t believe you when you were seeing shadows, I… I didn´t want it to be real."

She leaves the plates over the counter and hugs me.

"Don´t feel bad about it, I get it. I didn´t believe you when you thought Savannah was hunting the hotel."

"But you were patient with me, and you took care of me even though I didn´t tell you why I was sad, or afraid, or whatever…"

"And you took care of me the other night at the hospital. That´s what matters, being a team."

I was about to kiss her, but Wyatt enters the room, with a sleepy face and messy hair. He helps Sarah with the dishes and the mugs, once the table is set, we call Zoey and Griffin and have breakfast together.

While the kids clean everything up, Sarah and I go outside. Some kids are taking pictures of the hotel.

"Hi, I´m sorry but you can´t take pictures." I say, walking towards them. "The hotel is closed, so this is a private property."

"Is the ghost there?" a boy asks. "Aren´t you afraid?"

"Mrs. Campbell! Are you ok?" A brunette girl inquires. "The ghost attacked you!"

"Umm…" Sarah frowns. "Why do you say that?"

"I saw it! I saw it the other night!"

"I don´t know what you think you saw, but… I just…" she doubts. "We worked so hard to fix the broken pipes, and… all the stress… that I passed out." She lies. "But I´m ok now."

"It was a ghost!" The boy insists. "He hurt you! He was so mean!"

"And Savannah Dillon was there!" another boy shouts.

"What?" I raise my hands in the air asking for silence. "Ok, guys, stop. This is too much." I raise my voice. "I know a hunted hotel seems exciting, but they only exist in horror movies, ok? No ghost is hunting the hotel, nor Savannah, nor anyone e…"

"We know Savannah is not hunting the hotel." The girl interrupts. "She is a good ghost. She fought against the mean ghost with the others."

"Have you seen her?" the boy asks.

"No, we haven´t seen Savannah, guys." Sarah replies. "That´s an old story people used to scare kids."

"It´s not just a story! It´s true! I saw it!" The girl affirms. "The Tremont is hunted!"

"Ok, stop it." I command. "What´s your name?"

"Anna."

"Well, Anna, sometimes, if you believe deeply in something, you may think you see it, but it doesn´t mean it´s really there. We appreciate the concern, but we are safe, The Tremont is safe, and there is no ghost."

"I have proof." She says. "I uploaded the video. I´m gonna be famous!" she smiles. "And you too! You could tell your experie…

"Wow! You have a wild imagination!" I interrupt her. "Anyway, you shouldn´t made up stories about other people. Please, go home. All of you. We have a lot of work to do before the reopening."

The kids start walking away, and I stare at Sarah for a moment. She´s as worried as I am. If the video of the ghost is real, we are in serious trouble. No one would want to stay in a hunted hotel. However, another thing is spinning around my head right now. They said they saw Savannah. What are they talking about?

Jess, Harper and Topher arrive. Jess gets close to us with a smile on her face,

"Ready to work? What can we help with?"

"We have something to tell you first, Jess." Sarah sighs.

"What is it?" she frowns.

Jess sits next to us on the couch while Topher and Harper go upstairs with the kids. After explaining what happened to her, we search for the video, and we find it. I can´t believe it. There we are, attacked by that ghost that left Sarah in the hospital.

"Ok, don´t panic." Jess tries to calm us down. "My son is addicted to horror movies and creepy videos like this one. There are hundreds of videos like this, that doesn´t mean people believe it´s real."

"We appear in this video, Jess." Sarah nervously scratches her head. "What are we going to tell people?"

"We should think of a plan." I say. "We must. And we must do it soon."

Some minutes later, the video shows Griffin, Zoey, Wyatt, Harper, Topher and a blonde girl stepping into the living room. I stare at the blonde girl. She looks like Savannah, but grown up, she´s a teenager.

"Who is that?!" Jess is freaking out, just like I am.

"No idea." I shake my head, still staring at my phone.

"She does look like Savannah, doesn´t she?" Sarah asks.

"It´s like her twin!" I say. "She might be her daughter. Is that possible?"

"Could be." Jess replies. "The kids never mentioned her."

"We should ask them."