[5] My Last Normal Night (With Skeletons)

[REC] SPECTRAL SEEKERS - CASE FILE 073 - BLACKWOOD PLANT - 22:13

The timestamp throbbed in the corner of Rome's awareness like a countdown to execution. He couldn't move his head. His body belonged to the past, and the past had other plans.

The van's interior was a collision between security tech and teenage chaos. Hard plastic cases against coiled cables. Empty Monster cans rolled with each pothole. A tripod wedged between seats promised kidney injuries.

Chloe gripped the wheel with the intensity of a perfectionist. Her spine remained perfectly vertical even on these neglected streets. Dashboard lights painted her face sickly green.

Madison occupied the middle row, hunched over her laptop. Purple highlights caught the screen's glow as she worked.

Bree pressed against the window in back, staring at something outside. Her shoulders twitched periodically.

Jake controlled the stereo beside past-Rome, leg bouncing violently.

"Alright, team. We need to get into the right headspace. Setting the mood is crucial for a successful investigation."

He plugged his phone in. Static crackled, then a tinny song about skeletons filled the van.

Chloe exhaled sharply. "Really, Jake? This is your psychological prep?"

Her knuckles whitened against the wheel.

Madison looked up, rolled her eyes, and slapped on headphones without comment.

Past-Rome laughed. "You're such a child."

"Hey, it's a classic! Gets you in the mood!"

He was trying to keep things light, fighting the fear they all shared.

The van lurched over a massive pothole. Madison grabbed a camcorder and began recording.

"Okay, pre-investigation interviews for the log."

She aimed at Chloe first. "Team leader. What are you hoping to find tonight?"

"Empirical evidence of post-mortem consciousness manifestation." Chloe answered robotically. "Quantifiable data that demonstrates awareness persists beyond biological death."

Jake's turn: "What are your initial feelings about this location?"

"Honestly? I'm terrified and excited equally. Mostly excited though. This could be the big one."

The camera focused uncomfortably on past-Rome.

"So, the 'muscle.' You don't seem like the type to believe in this stuff. What's the real reason you're here?"

"Someone has to make sure this idiot doesn't fall through a rotten floorboard."

Madison's lips curved slightly. "Fair enough."

The camera lingered on his face.

"Jake mentioned weird things tend to happen around you though. Any comment?"

"Jake exaggerates. I've just had bad luck with landlords."

Madison held the shot uncomfortably long, clearly sensing the lie.

The perspective snapped back to dashcam view.

She knew, Rome realized. Even then, she knew something was off.

The van passed under flickering streetlights. The skeleton song warped, dropping to an impossible demonic drone. Beneath it, a voice whispered:

"Mine."

Then the song normalized.

Jake laughed nervously. "Whoa, signal interference."

Madison typed rapidly. "Major EMF from these old power lines. It's interfering with the unshielded speaker cable."

Perfect explanation. Yet the van had gone cold.

"See?" Jake forced brightness. "Totally explainable. Speaking of which, what do you call a ghost's true love?"

Collective groaning.

"His ghoul-friend!"

Past-Rome laughed, though it held nervous energy.

On the dashcam's audio, his laugh distorted into a half-second scream of terror. No one reacted. They hadn't heard it.

Chloe turned onto the final approach. City lights vanished behind dead trees. Only headlights penetrated the solid darkness.

The dashcam pixelated for three frames. Something stood at the edge of the light beam—impossibly tall and thin, with limbs at anatomically impossible angles.

The footage corrected. Empty road.

Chloe slammed the brakes, throwing everyone forward. Equipment crashed.

"What the hell was that?!"

Madison rewound with shaking fingers. She froze the corrupted image and enhanced it, producing a nightmarish result.

"Nothing. The feed corrupted. Compression artifact from EMF interference."

She couldn't meet anyone's eyes.

Jake turned off the music. Silence fell as Chloe inched forward.

Turn around, Rome thought desperately. Turn around and go home.

The headlights swept across a rusted chain-link fence. Warning signs hung crooked. PRIVATE PROPERTY. NO TRESPASSING. DANGER.

Behind it stood the Blackwood Meatpacking Plant. Four stories of brick and broken windows, not inherently imposing, yet it pulled at Rome's awareness with unnatural gravity.

Chloe stopped. The dashcam switched to night vision, showing the plant's entrance.

The massive rusted door groaned open an inch. Something like black smoke poured from the gap, moving with purpose before dissipating.

Bree made a sound between recognition and terror.

"The veil," she whispered. "It's so thin here. I can hear them screaming."

"Who's screaming?" Jake barely whispered.

"Everyone who died here. Everyone who bled into the concrete. They're still here. They've been waiting."

She found past-Rome's eyes in the mirror.

"They've been waiting for you."

Past-Rome's heart raced with adrenaline. His body screamed to run.

But he stayed. Because Jake was there. Because backing down meant admitting fear. Because foster homes had taught him showing weakness only made things worse.

The timestamp continued its march.

22:47.

[REC] SPECTRAL SEEKERS - CASE FILE 073 - BLACKWOOD PLANT - 22:53

The dashcam captured their exit from the van. Jake's boots hit gravel first, his knees shaking through the green night vision filter. Chloe followed, spine rigid, gripping her equipment bag like a shield. Madison emerged with camera already recording, her breathing too loud through the mic. The camera swung to Bree, who stood staring at the building.

"You coming?"

Madison's question sounded more like a dare.

Bree nodded, took a step, then stopped. "There's something in there."

"Yeah, that's kind of the point." Jake's voice cracked. He cleared his throat. "I mean, that's what we're hoping for. Scientific documentation of paranormal phenomena and all that."

Past-Rome exited last. Rome watched himself scan the building with a construction worker's wariness, searching for hazards and weak points. His past self had no idea the real danger wouldn't come from rotten floorboards.

They crossed the parking lot in a tight cluster, gravel crunching loudly beneath their boots. The rusted door loomed, open that single inch, bleeding thick not-smoke into the night air.

Chloe pulled the handle. The door screamed—metal on metal, rust flaking in chunks, the frame shuddering. The sound echoed across the empty lot before the door swung open.

Madison's camera and flashlight swept inside, cutting through choking darkness. Dust particles danced in the beam as it traveled across the vast space, revealing decayed machinery, conveyor belts, and exposed control panels.

And the hooks. Rows of meat hooks hanging from ceiling chains. Hundreds of rust-stained steel curves swaying slightly, creating a chorus of tiny, discordant creaks.

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. "Empty. Abandoned. Full of perfectly explainable environmental factors that create an unsettling atmosphere."

The others followed, Rome last, his hand unconsciously reaching for the obsidian pendant under his shirt.

The temperature dropped immediately—fifteen degrees colder inside. Their breath turned to fog in their flashlight beams, five white vapor streams cutting through dust.

"Significant temperature differential." Chloe checked her thermometer. "Fifty-one degrees Fahrenheit. Expected range for this structure with no insulation and ventilation damage."

They moved deeper inside, flashlights carving overlapping circles through darkness. The building seemed larger inside, distance meaningless in the dark beneath the canopy of surgical steel hooks.

A door slammed somewhere, the sound cracking like a gunshot. They all jumped. Jake yelped in a high pitch. Chloe spun toward the sound, her flashlight bouncing wildly.

Silence followed—just their breathing and creaking chains overhead.

Jake laughed nervously. "Okay, so. Maybe that was just the wind."

"Air pressure differential," Chloe explained, her shaking hands betraying her. "When we opened the main door, it created a draft affecting unsecured interior doors."

Madison panned across their faces—Jake's nervous grin, Bree's wide eyes, past-Rome's neutral expression, and Chloe's cracking composure.

The tension suddenly broke. They were just scaring themselves in an empty, cold building—creepy but harmless.

Chloe smiled and clapped her hands, shifting into director mode. "Alright, let's not waste good atmosphere. Madison, set up base camp by those offices. Jake, IR cameras on the second-floor catwalks. Bree, do a preliminary sweep for impressions."

They transformed from terrified explorers to efficient film crew. Madison unpacked equipment with practiced ease, setting up a folding table and organizing cables. Jake hauled Pelican cases toward the catwalk stairs, already in host mode.

"We're here at the infamous Blackwood Meatpacking Plant," he gestured broadly, "a place where tragedy and death have left their mark on the very fabric of reality."

"Jake," Chloe interrupted. "You're backlit. I can't see your face. Try again."

Past-Rome stood holding a reflector panel he didn't remember picking up, looking annoyed and confused about becoming the AV department's pack mule.

"Rome, can you angle that more to the left?"

He shifted.

"No, my left."

He shifted again.

"Higher. No, lower. There."

This continued for ten minutes. Watching now, Rome saw the pattern forming. Madison would set up a shot, need an extra hand, spot past-Rome, and put him to work. Hold this cable. Watch that case. Mind the gaffer tape.

He was the roadie for a ghost hunting YouTube channel.

The glamorous life he'd always dreamed of.