Chardi hustled past the hubbub of people unloading complicated camera and electrical equipment from the vans and directly into the school without making eye contact with anyone. He barely looked around the school once he was inside, except to look for somewhere to hide for a second. The foyer of the school was dusty with damaged parquet floors, fake columns and a glass window beside a plain looking wooden door that likely led to an administrative office. Chardi turned toward the plain door and opened it. It led into a room full of bent and knocked over filing cabinets and a rusting typewriter on top of a scratched wooden desk. He kept going through another plain wooden door into a bigger room full of old rusting metal desks lined up in a grid. This room also featured more metal filing cabinets in various states of disarray, piles of paper forms cascading onto stained carpets, overturned chairs, reels of typewriter ink spilling over desktops as well as the hulking forms of typewriters themselves squatting on each metal desk.

  Chardi's heart was pounding in his chest as he came to a stuttering stop just inside the door. He fumbled as he tried to pull his backpack off his back with shaking hands. He knocked a stack of water damaged paper off a nearby desk as he threw his backpack onto it. Paper scattered everywhere, covering the nasty brown carpet with a quietly shushing layer of off-color white and typeface. Chardi struggled to control his breathing as he unzipped this pocket and that, searching for a bottle of pills that he knew he packed. Even though the prescription was probably at least two years old, he wouldn't have dared to come to a place like an allegedly haunted school without it.

  Finally, Chardi found the orange bottle rattling around in the bottom of the main pocket beneath his rolled up clothes. The pills clattered against the bottle as he held it in his shaking hands and struggled with the tamper proof lid. He was cussing out his frustrations when a hand appeared from seemingly nowhere to snatch the bottle out of his hand.

  Chardi spun around, his heart already pounding like it was trying to knock its way through his rib cage. Derek was holding the bottle up and squinting at the label to read the faded type.

  "Haloperidol?" he asked. Chardi tried to snatch the bottle back, but Derek effortlessly held the bottle out of his reach. He turned his stormy blue eyes on Chardi, a spark of interest shining in his eyes. "You saw something, didn't you?"

  "Fuck you! You don't take someone's medication away from them! What the fuck is wrong with you?" Chardi spat, taking another swipe at the bottle. But, their height difference was too great. All Derek had to do was stretch his arm above his head and his knuckles brushed the ceiling.

  "This isn't medically necessary. It's a crutch," Derek responded casually.

  "FUCK YOU!" Chardi roared, shoving Derek hard and reaching for his pill bottle again.

  Derek smirked. He took a few stumbling steps backward at the shove, but otherwise seemed unfazed. When Chardi rushed him again, he caught the hood of his sweatshirt in his fist and yanked Chardi back, holding him by back like he was scruffing a cat. Chardi choked on the collar of his shirt. He reached up to try and pry Derek's fingers off, but they didn't budge.

  "You've been here ten minutes and you've already seen something," Derek said, a manic glint glowing in his eyes. "I was right about you and I was right about this place. But, these," here Derek shook the pill bottle briefly in Chardi's face before snatching them away when he reached for them, "these are just going to make you dull. They're going to cloud your sight. And I need you clear. I need you sharp. Understand?"

  Chardi's anger drained out of his body through the bottom of his feet, leaving him shaky and terrified. Derek and his manic eyes were terrifying him almost more than the sight of the little girl he had certainly hallucinated. Suddenly, he knew he couldn't do this. Little dead kids and violent manic white men and broken down empty schools. Everything was too similar to things that had already happened to him.

  "I can't do this," Chardi croaked out, still hanging onto Derek's fist in his shirt. "I'm leaving."

  Derek tilted his head like he was looking at an interesting bug, instead of a panicking person clutched in his grip.

  "I guess you could do that," he said considering. "But, it's a pretty far drive back to your school from here. Paying for the cab to bring you from Furnace Valley alone cost a pretty penny. You're a nice honest guy, aren't you? I bet you only asked me for what you needed to get by until now. Do you have the money to pay for a ride back home, Mr. Sodhi?"

  Chardi swallowed around a bruised throat and tried to control his shaking. Fuck him, but he was right. Chardi hadn't asked for any more of an advance than he absolutely needed. He had kept working his dishwasher job, but his hours kept getting fewer and fewer. He really didn't have the money to pay for a cab to get back to campus and he didn't know anyone who would be able to come get him.

  "Fuck you," Chardi croaked out, but it must have sounded as pathetic to Derek as it had to Chardi, because he smiled and let go of Chardi's shirt. Chardi took a few gasping breaths and tried to smooth out his shirt collar, but it was irreparably stretched out.

  "I'll just keep hold of these," Derek said, shaking the pill bottle for emphasis and tucking them into his jeans pocket. "If it gets to be too much we can discuss maybe cutting a pill in half. But, I need you alert for this investigation. Do we have an understanding?"

  "You're such an incredible asshole," Chardi bit out instead of answering. "Does it take work to be this much of an inconsiderate ass or were you just born that way?" he snapped.

  Derek smiled beatifically. "Just born this way, I guess. Anyway, I want you to take a walk through through the school yourself, since things are already happening."

  "What the fuck? Hell no," Chardi bit out.

  "Billy can go with you to document it. He doesn't believe in any of this anyway, so he can handle it," Derek continued like he hadn't heard.

  "I said I'm not doing it," Chardi overly enunciated each word.

  "Need I remind you that you signed a contract, Mr. Sodhi? If you don't plan on doing your job, I'm going to need that advance I gave you back with interest. And, it won't be me coming after you for that money, it will be the television network."

  Chardi groaned aloud, rubbing his hands through his curly hair, surely making it even more of a bird's nest than it always was.

  "Very good. I knew we could reach an understanding."

  Ten minutes later, Chardi had marginally calmed himself down and was standing back in the lobby area. He tucked his still trembling hands into his jean pockets and watched Derek and Billy fight in the same passive aggressive way they had done just minutes before out by the campsite.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  Chardi tried not to eavesdrop, but they weren't making any special effort to be quiet, so it was hard not to. Derek commanded Billy like he was his boss, no familiarity or flexibility at all. Billy seemed like he chafed under Derek's orders, but wasn't willing to confront him directly.

  "The guys are still unloading the van. They need help organizing the camera equipment," Billy said.

  "Brad can handle it," Derek said

  "There's hundreds of feet of cabling to lay. You can't expect Brad and Imogen to handle all that," Billy said.

  "Elijah can help out too. She needs something to do," Derek said.

  "You haven't even filmed the intro. How do you plan to splice this footage into the episode?" Billy asked.

  "We'll figure it out later," Derek said.

  Eventually, Billy ran out of protests except for the ones that would have been too direct, Chardi guessed. He guessed the unsaid bits were about how Billy didn't want anything to do with him and why couldn't Derek find anybody else to do this. But, Billy wasn't going to say that and Chardi wasn't going to say that for him, so there they were.

  When Billy finally stomped over to Chardi and gestured him to lead the way, he didn't make eye contact and Chardi didn't push the issue. He got to his feet and shoved his still trembling fingers under his armpits. It was cold enough to justify it. Somehow it was colder in the old empty school than it was outside.

  Chardi picked a door at random from beneath the big curved staircase in the foyer, heading through a set of metal security doors.

  He found himself in a long hallway lined with lockers on one side and windows on the other. Aside from the dirt and grim, it looked like any other school Chardi had been to. And, he had been to a lot of different schools while being traded around to different foster families. The lockers were all painted gray with a big pink stripe running across them at waist height. Some of them were popped open, spilling yellowed paper and pens onto the dirty cracked tile floor. Wooden doors with cracked and broken glass windows stood open all the way down the hallway.

  Chardi wandered, feeling both exhausted and on edge. His adrenaline was crashing after seeing the girl in the woods and then having that awful encounter with Derek. He felt shaky and exhausted, but something about the school kept him on edge. He thought it might just be bad memories of having to start over in new schools over and over throughout his teenage years. Though, he didn't think bad memories would give him the feeling of being watched as he walked past doorways, the impression of eyes looking at him around corners, the feeling that someone was darting out of sight every time he turned his head.

  After a minute of walking silently without anything but a mounting sense of dread, Chardi finally turned back to Billy to check if he was feeling the same thing. He looked tense, but otherwise his face was blank as he regarded Chardi through the viewfinder of his big bulky camera. More importantly than Billy though was the flash of a pleated skirt and a small leg disappearing into the doorway of a nearby classroom as Chardi turned around.

  Chardi froze, staring at the doorway the girl had just disappeared into. She still looked just as solid as she had in the woods.

  "So, are you going to do anything?" Billy asked testily after Chardi had probably been frozen for a few beats too long.

  "What?" Chardi asked, trying to shake off his shock at seeing something again and tune into whatever Billy was saying.

  "Derek wanted me to 'document' whatever the hell it is you do," Billy said, hefting the camera on his shoulder in explanation. "But, all you've been doing is walking around silently. Aren't you going to put on a show? Or, is this it?"

  Chardi's shoulders came up as he scowled back at Billy. "There is no show! What the fuck do you want me to do?"

  "I don't know," Billy scoffed. "Attach some fishing line to some doors? Hide some Bluetooth speakers in these lockers? Maybe I should document that, huh?"

  Chardi opened his mouth to snark right back at Billy. It probably wasn't destined to be much of a zinger. But, his mouth snapped shut when a thought slapped him so hard up the side of his head that it knocked whatever he was going to say right out of it.

  Derek obviously faked most of his evidence on his YouTube channel. Billy seemed to know that and expected Chardi to be a sudden addition in the service of that. What if the little girl was a real little girl dressed up in an old timey school uniform just to fuck with Chardi? What if the whole point of dragging him kicking and screaming into Derek's first episode was to add some validity to his evidence? Was the plan to pull someone with some real mental illness in who was desperate for money and then show them a "ghost" and watch them freak out on live television? After all, no one can fake it like someone who really believes what they're seeing.

  "Oh, that asshole," Chardi seethed aloud as he stomped past Billy toward the doorway the girl had just disappeared into.

  Billy looked completely flummoxed by Chardi's sudden change of demeanor. After a moment of shock, he followed behind him with a confused "Sorry what?"

  The classroom that Chardi charged into looked like it had barely been changed since the school closed in the 70s. It still had a big blackboard at the front, covered all over with loopy feminine script. Goodbye messages, funny limericks, silly drawings of dogs and flowers by the girls who were probably in their last class when the school shut down. They left their goodbye messages all over the blackboard to be memorialized much longer than they likely expected. There were rows of desks barely aged by time. The windows were thick with grime, making the room look like it was twilight even though it was only a few hours into the afternoon. There weren't many places to hide.

  Chardi marched over to the teacher's desk first and crouched down to look underneath, but the only thing there was dust and spiderwebs. Chardi cussed and climbed back to his feet to check the cabinets on the other side of the room.

  "What the hell are you doing?" Billy asked, sounding sincerely confused, but still pointing his camera at Chardi dutifully.

  "Your brother has been fucking with me," Chardi spat. "He somehow found out that I hallucinate shit and he's setting me up to freak the fuck out on national television. But, he can GO FUCK HIMSELF!" Chardi shouted at the ceiling. He started to pull open the cabinet doors at random. Dusty textbooks, moth eaten papers and dirty supply boxes were all that greeted.

  "What? Derek? No, I mean, I don't think-" Billy stuttered, but Chardi ignored him.

  "He stalked me, dug up my past, and extorted me to get me here. He's a fucking operator, so of course he set me up," Chardi snapped, finally opening the last cabinet and frowning at the lack of little girl. He was unnerved for a second before he considered that there must be another hiding place he missed.

  Chardi stood up and whirled on Billy, ready to tell him even more about his dick bag brother, but he stopped dead.

  She was there, peeking out from behind Billy with sharp blue eyes watching Chardi keenly. Her hand was clutched in the end of Billy's over sized jacket, her small fingers puckering the fabric. She was solid and real, but also just slightly unreal. Something about her gave Chardi that same unnerving feeling, like the swoop in your belly when you reach the top of a hill going at high speed. A moment of no gravity before being pulled back to Earth.

  Billy turned his head and his camera to follow Chardi's line of sight and screeched when his eyes met the girl's. He jumped away from her and she let go of his jacket and jumped away from him, as well. She looked terrified for a second and then shot across the room toward the windows. She took three big strides and disappeared into thin air four feet before she hit the wall of windows, fading out of existence like she had just stepped through an invisible doorway.

  Both of them stood staring at the point where the girl had disappeared with wide eyes.

  "Did, uh," Billy started, his voice cracking, "Did you just see that?"

  Chardi nodded slowly. "Did you catch it on camera?" he asked after a second, feeling a little breathless.

  Billy jumped a little and looked at his camera like he just remembered it was sitting on his shoulder. He rushed over to Chardi and leaned close to show him the small screen where they could review the footage. He played back the last few seconds of footage and they watched together as Billy swung his camera toward the girl just as she disappeared into thin air.

  They looked at each other, stunned for a second, before rushing back outside.