\[REC\] SPECTRAL SEEKERS - CASE FILE 073 - BLACKWOOD PLANT - 22:53
The dashcam captured their exit from the van in unflattering detail. Jake's boots hit gravel first, his knees visibly shaking even through the green night vision filter. Chloe followed, her spine that same rigid vertical line, hands gripping her equipment bag like it might shield her from whatever waited in the dark.
Madison came next, camera already up and recording. The perspective shifted to her handheld view. Her breathing rasped through the mic, too loud, too fast. The camera swung toward Bree, who stood beside the van with her arms wrapped around herself. Her eyes hadn't left the building.
"You coming?"
Madison's question sounded more like a dare than an invitation.
Bree nodded. Took a step. Stopped.
"There's something in there."
"Yeah, that's kind of the point." Jake's voice cracked halfway through. He cleared his throat. "I mean, that's what we're hoping for. Scientific documentation of paranormal phenomena and all that."
Past-me was the last one out. I watched myself scan the building with the kind of wariness construction workers develop around unstable structures. Looking for obvious hazards. Weak points in the facade. Places where the roof might collapse.
The memory me had no idea the real danger wouldn't come from rotten floorboards.
We crossed the parking lot in a tight cluster. Gravel crunched under our boots loud enough to wake the dead. The joke would have been funny if I wasn't currently trapped in a memory watching myself walk straight into a nightmare.
The rusted door loomed. Still open that single inch. Still bleeding that thick not-smoke into the night air.
Chloe reached out. Her hand shook as it gripped the cold metal handle.
She pulled.
The door screamed. Metal on metal, rust flaking off in chunks, the whole frame shuddering like it was trying to stay shut. The sound echoed across the empty lot and into the dead trees beyond.
Then it swung open.
Madison's camera swept inside. Her flashlight beam cut through darkness thick enough to choke on. Dust particles swirled in the light, dancing like living things. The beam traveled across a vast open space, picking out shapes in the gloom.
Machinery. Conveyor belts frozen in decay. Control panels with their guts hanging out, wires and circuit boards exposed like mechanical entrails.
And the hooks.
Rows and rows of meat hooks hanging from ceiling-mounted chains. Hundreds of them, each one a wicked curve of rust-stained steel. They swayed slightly in the draft coming through the open door. Metal creaking against metal in a chorus of tiny, discordant voices.
We stood in the doorway. Nobody moved.
"Okay." Jake's voice had climbed an octave. "This is officially creepy as hell."
"It's just a building." Chloe stepped inside first because of course she did. Her flashlight beam swept left, then right. "Empty. Abandoned. Full of perfectly explainable environmental factors that create an unsettling atmosphere."
She was trying to convince herself.
Madison followed, camera never wavering. Bree came next, then Jake. Past-me brought up the rear, one hand unconsciously reaching for the obsidian pendant under my shirt.
The temperature dropped the moment we crossed the threshold. Had to be fifteen degrees colder inside than out. Our breath turned to fog in our flashlight beams.
Madison's camera captured it in real time. Five streams of white vapor cutting through the dust.
"Significant temperature differential." Chloe pulled out a digital thermometer. "Fifty-one degrees Fahrenheit. Expected range for this type of structure with no insulation and extensive ventilation damage."
Always with the explanations. Always needing to rationalize everything into neat, scientific boxes.
We moved deeper inside. Our flashlights carved overlapping circles of light through the darkness. The building stretched out around us, far larger than it had looked from outside. Distance became meaningless in the dark. The meat hooks swayed overhead like a forest canopy made of surgical steel.
Somewhere in the building, a door slammed.
The sound cracked through the space like a gunshot. We all jumped. Jake's yelp came out about three octaves higher than his normal speaking voice. Chloe spun toward the sound, her flashlight beam bouncing wildly across rusted equipment.
Silence.
Just our breathing and the quiet creak of chains overhead.
Then Jake laughed. The sound came out strangled, halfway between genuine amusement and hysteria.
"Okay, so. Maybe that was just the wind."
"Air pressure differential." Chloe lowered her flashlight. Her hands were shaking. "When we opened the main door, it created a draft that would have affected any unsecured interior doors."
Madison panned her camera across our faces. Catching Jake's nervous grin, Bree's wide eyes, past-me's carefully neutral expression. The lens lingered on Chloe, whose scientific composure was cracking at the edges.
The tension that had wound us tight in the van just snapped.
We were scaring ourselves. Playing at ghost hunting in a building that was just a building. Empty. Cold. Creepy as hell, sure, but ultimately harmless.
The relief was palpable.
Chloe actually cracked a smile. She clapped her hands together, the sound sharp in the cavernous space. Her whole demeanor shifted. Director mode activated.
"Alright, let's not waste good atmosphere. We've got three hours until we need to be out of here. Madison, set up base camp by those offices." She pointed her flashlight at a row of glass-fronted rooms along the far wall. "Jake, I want IR cameras on the second-floor catwalks. Get me good angles on the processing floor. Bree, do a preliminary sweep. Tell me where you're feeling the strongest impressions."
Just like that, we went from terrified urban explorers to a film crew on location.
Madison moved with the kind of competence that comes from doing something a hundred times before. She shrugged off her backpack and started pulling out equipment. A folding table appeared. Laptop cases. A tangle of charging cables that somehow organized themselves in her hands. She worked in silence, her movements economical and sure.
Jake hauled the heavy Pelican cases toward the metal stairs leading to the catwalks. He was already in host mode, camera-ready smile plastered across his face despite the sweat on his forehead.
"We're here at the infamous Blackwood Meatpacking Plant."
He gestured broadly at the darkness around us.
"A place where tragedy and death have left their mark on the very fabric of reality."
"Jake." Chloe's voice cut across the space. "You're backlit. I can't see your face. Try it again."
Past-me stood there holding a reflector panel I didn't remember picking up. The memory me looked vaguely annoyed. Also confused about how I'd become the audio-visual department's pack mule.
"Rome, can you angle that more to the left?"
I shifted.
"No, my left."
I shifted again.
"Higher. No, lower. There."
This went on for ten minutes.
Watching it now, I could see the pattern forming. Madison would set up a shot, discover she needed an extra hand, look around, spot past-me standing there like an idiot, and immediately put me to work. Hold this cable. Watch that equipment case. Make sure nobody trips over the gaffer tape.
I was the roadie for a ghost hunting YouTube channel.
The glamorous life I'd always dreamed of.