CHAPTER 7: We must go right now.

Ben point of view:

Memories from the camp have been spinning around my head since yesterday. I feel like it was a dream. It feels unreal, completely unreal, I talked for hour with a childhood friend, but she´s not my age, she´s a teenager!

Despite the weirdness of the situation, I´m glad it happened. The note written by Savannah, telling me she´d run away in search of her family, took a weight off my shoulders. I didn´t have to feel guilty anymore for abandoning her in the basement. But now, I know the truth, which is even better. Because she did find a family, she got adopted. I couldn´t be happier for her.

"You´re smiling…" Sarah gets close to me and sweetly holds my hand. "Thinking about yesterday?"

"Yeah, it was unbelievable!"

"Totally! And you know what? I´m extremely happy for you. I don´t even remember the last time you laughed that hard!"

"Neither do I…"

"Well, you deserve it." She winks at me. "I hope you keep smiling and laughing like that."

"Thanks, honey." I give her a quick kiss. "As long as you and the kids are with me I´ll be happy."

During breakfast, Zoey asks if there´s any other fun story to tell about my childhood.

"Not that I remember of." I reply, taking a sip of coffee. "But I´ve been thinking of the camp the whole night, and I came up with an idea."

"What idea?" Wyatt inquires with his mouth full of cereal.

"Recalling the camp, specifically how intimidating Jess could be, to the point of making Savannah go to the basement in the middle of the night… I thought that the ones who must time travel and keep Anna away from The Tremont, are us." I point at Sarah and myself. "Me, your mom, and Jess."

"That sounds good." Wyatt agrees.

"Yeah, totally." Griff nods. "You could say something like ´you shouldn´t be in our property and take pictures without consent, it´s rude´."

"Knock, knock!" Jess opens the front door and gets inside, along with Harper and Topher.

"Right on time, Jess!" I say. "We´re deciding the last details of our plan."

"That´s great! But we have a more urgent problem to solve." She points outside. "There´s a bunch of people out there, they want to talk to the owners."

"Terrific." The sarcasm in Sarah´s voice is clear.

Reluctantly, she stands up and follows Jess outside. I do the same. I recognize some of these people, they were guests during the reopening or current customers at Dunn´s café. In a matter of seconds, they surround us. A few reporters are here, including the woman who was writing an article about the hotel´s reopening. All of them stretch their arms getting voice recorders next to our faces. Everyone is shouting different questions, suggestions and worries, but the reporters´ make themselves heard above the noise.

"How do you feel knowing The Tremont is really hunted?!"

"Are you afraid the ghost will attack you again?!"

"Mrs. Campbell! You were the most affected by the ghost, would you mind telling us your experience?"

"Do you think The Tremont is safe? Is the reopening worth it? Or it should be closed forever?"

"Umm… no…" Sarah pushes the voice recorders out of her face. "The Tremont won´t close. Actually, the reopening will take place soon."

"There´s no need to be afraid!" Jess tries to make herself heard. "Everything´s under control!"

"How can you be sure?!" a woman insists. "The hotel should be demolished!"

"Ok, that´s enough!" I yell, with more anger than I intended to. "We have a lot of work to do before the reopening, so please, let us finish the repairs and then we´ll answer all your questions." I lie. "Excuse us."

I make my way in between the crowd and rush inside, followed by Jess and Sarah.

"What did they want?" Griff inquires, standing by the window with the others. They were spying on us.

"Details about the other night and demolish the place!" I chuckle.

"What?!" they all shout.

"We must go right now." I haven´t seen Sarah so determined in a while. "Let´s go."

"You can´t go now, mom." Griff stops her. "The radio allows you to go to a specific date but not specific time. You must wait until it´s dark."

"Crap, you´re right."

After a minute of silence, we decide the next step. Sarah is anxious and need some fresh air, that´s why she´ll go out to buy all the stuff that must be replaced: two lamps, a clock, a bed, a flowerpot, a hat rack and a painting. Only a few things, but totally different, so there are a lot of stores to visit. Topher and the twins go with her. The rest of us will stay just in case the reporters go back. Besides, I have to tell Jess the rest of the plan.

Even though I didn´t do much, it was a long day. It might be because of how impatient we are to fix all this mess. We need this day to end.

Sarah, Jess, Griff and I go the bunker. I asked Griff to set the radio at the right date, I didn´t want to mess it up.

Jess, Sarah and I walk though that dark tunnel in direction to the hatch. I´ve never experienced this kind of jolt, it´s like a strong, painful tingling all over my body, it´s awful. If everything goes as planned, I won´t have to go through it again.

We hide behind the fountain and study the situation. Only the ground floor´s lights are on.

"I´ll go." Jess runs to the hotel, and peeks through the living room´s window.

Sarah and I stay behind the fountain looking at our surroundings. The calm ends a couple minutes later when Anna appears on the parking lot. She walks stealthily, heading to the front door, her phone ready to record what´s going on. She doesn´t notice Jess until she´s right next to her. Jess´ withering look must intimidate her because she puts her phone away. Their conversation can´t be heard from this distance. We get close to them, acting as if we didn´t know what that girl is doing here,

"What´s going on, Jess?"

The girl turns around when she hears my voice.

"This girl affirms she heard us talking about a ghost yesterday. She´s here for evidence."

"What? A ghost?" Sarah fakes a giggle. "I´m sure you heard our kids talking, not us. They do believe in ghosts, but none of us has seen one in the hotel."

"But you felt it, didn´t you?" Her wide eyes staring at us show she truly believes there´s a ghost. "What exactly did you feel?"

"Yesterday´s commotion was about a broken pipe that flooded a few rooms." Jess breaks in. "As soon as we fix it we´ll reopen."

"So, there´s no ghost, then?" she pouts, disappointed.

"No ghost." I firmly say. "How did you get here? Would you like me to call your parents?"

"No!" she freaks out. Seems like she sneaked out. "Umm… it´s ok, I´ll go home." she looks at the window again, hoping she´ll find some evidence, I guess.

"You shouldn´t wander alone at night." Jess calls her out. "And definitely you shouldn´t come to someone´s home and take pictures."

"You should go home." Sarah adds.

The withering look from the three of us makes the girl apologize and quickly sets out on her way home. Right on time. The chaos inside the hotel is getting audible. We stay there making sure Anna doesn´t come back before leaving.

On our way to the hatch, we see our kids at the distance, riding their bikes in direction to The Tremont as fast as they can. We hear an ambulance too. Knowing it´s coming for Sarah gives me goosebumps.

I´m the last one going down the hatch. I make sure to close it properly before returning to the bunker.

We made it. Everything went according to plan. I hope it was worth it.