The Reid Farmhouse - Outside
Penny felt sick. She wanted to be alone. She had overdone it earlier in her fight with Reese, and instead of sitting on a couch with a bowl of ice cream and watching crummy reality TV until her brain melted she had gone out to the farm. She had to go out to the farm. There was a chance they would discover something important; maybe the next page in Reid’s diary so they could get a grasp on what their “job” actually was. Also, there was a chance that Reese would show up. That was the real reason she wanted to be here. She wanted a chance to take him down again and, as much as it sucked to say, she knew it was next to impossible for her to do it by herself.
She also couldn’t shake the thought that if she had followed through with her more basic instinct to jump into some pjs and veg out by herself that Scott Reese would’ve known, just as he had known that the calvary was arriving, and take that moment to scratch one more camper off of his list. She didn’t like the idea of playing the victim. It was much better to play the opposing role, even if it made you into a bully. Besides, even if she was surrounded by people, she still knew how to not be bothered—cross the arms, lower the shades, freeze a frown on her face, and don’t speak. Easy. Just her, her migraine, and an unending chain of nicotine and carcinogens. What more could a girl ask for, except for a muzzle to be slapped on to the new kid who was too goddamn happy to be here?
“Technically we’re doing crimes by breaking and entering,” said Billy to Isabella. “But yeah, let’s call it ghost hunting so we can take an insanity plea if we get caught.”
Penny muttered a quiet dumbass underneath her breath, and then visibly bristled when one of the girls from Sucre (Paige right? She thought she had heard someone call her Paige) approached her on a crutch. As the silver haired girl spoke, Penny’s features softened and the corners of her lips rose for a brief moment into a mildly embarrassed smile that she quickly masked by shoving a cigarette back into her face. For a second she even forgot that her head felt like a constant blast beat was being played upon it.
“Don’t mention it. It was the right thing to do,” she said. To Penny, it was the only thing she could’ve done. No alternatives had even crossed her mind. She looked past the girl as one of the groups headed into the barn. She cocked her head their way. “They’re leaving you behind.”
Penny didn’t fail to notice the “Claire Bear Stare” being cast her way. At the same time she felt her headache come back. Fitting. Behind her glasses, she stared back. It’d be idiotic to start shit up again, but Penny would push back if forced.
The Reid Farmhouse - Main House
"I was actually hoping that you'd join me. You're too quiet and I get the feeling I need to keep my eye on you."
Rita felt her face scrunch up as Britney tried to play the truth off as a joke. So Britney was going to be scrutinizing her then, huh? It was an alarming thought, even though Rita wasn’t sure why she felt a sense of unease around Britney (aside from how Rita felt a general unease around any person, obviously). After all, the other girl seemed to mainly be interested in helping out the other members of the support group, even if she seemingly knew a suspicious amount of information regarding their bizarre situation. Whatever it was, Rita felt relief when others signed up to be apart of their investigation team—she even mouthed a “thank God” to Martin as he volunteered himself. Otherwise, she was worried that Britney would do more interrogating than Rita would.
With the groups squared away they proceeded up on to the porch of the three-story house. There was something surreal about seeing the house from the old newspaper up close in person, and with the sun beginning to set Rita felt the pressure to burn through the house as quickly as possible before there was no more daylight. The front door was locked, but Britney used her abstraction to unlatch a window.
“I’ll do it,” said Rita when Britney asked for someone to squeeze through the window. For starters, she was now determined to be as helpful as possible to hopefully diminish whatever suspicions it was that Britney had about her. Plus, she was the smallest. It only made sense.
What didn’t make sense, and Rita hadn’t realized this until she set both of her feet on the hardwood floor of the inside of John Reid’s farmhouse, was volunteering to go in alone into a house where a murder had apparently happened according to some mysterious, randomly appearing newspaper article. The newspaper seemed incredibly old, so it was likely that it had been a long time ago and she wouldn’t be wandering blindly into any freshly bloated corpses, but it hadn’t appeared until after the God-Child had shown them the future. Who’s to say that it wasn’t another premonition? Regardless, Rita moved swiftly through what appeared to be a completely normal dining room and into the hall, taking no time to find the front door and open it for the others.
“Um, come on in?” she said, feeling more nervous by the second.
The Reid Farmhouse - Garage
“Hey, you’re welcome to join as long as you keep your drawings to yourself, bro,” said Billy to Rien before clapping them on the shoulder. “Sorry about earlier, by the way. Us lazy people gotta stick together.”
"I mean hey, if you're looking for a ghost..."
Billy looked down as indicated by Nate, his jaw dropping ever so slightly as the man’s shoe momentarily disappeared into the dirt. Even after witnessing Rien’s ability to draw things to life and his sister’s power of somehow becoming even more of a super bitch (which, having not witnessed her abstraction, was what he assumed her power was, all things considered), seeing an abstraction being used was still mind blowing. It also made him a little jealous, since he still had no clue if he had been forgotten or had just drawn some dud abstraction in the power lottery they had seemingly all joined in on.
“I dunno dude, it looks a little fake. We should probably just stick with the sheet,” said Billy, giving Nate a smile that said he was also now accepted into the fellowship of the garage. Not that their group had any real restrictions as to who joined it. Really, he was kind of hoping for four to five other people so he could just dick about while the rest of them searched, but regretfully it seemed like the others had already settled into their other squads. Team Garage moved forward, dipping through one of the doors and stepping into the sunless garage. Billy pulled out his phone and switched on the flashlight, shining it over all of the junk. Apparently, John Reid had been a hoarder. As Jordan poked fun at his comment about it being easy mode, Billy groaned out a soft, “Ah, shit.” But it wasn’t all too bad. After all, there was a sick muscle car that—Sweet Jesus what had Reid done to it?
"How about we go check the cars first?" Kimberly said, "If there's something hidden, maybe it'd be in there."
“I’m on it,” said Billy. He blew past the truck—driving a truck was just asking for someone to beg you to help them move—and began to fidget around with the muscle car. He looked inside the hood, under the frame, and then got into the driver’s seat. He fumbled around inside for a minute, poking at this, pulling at that, before he shouted loud enough to get the attention of the garage gang. “Oh man!” he said, his voice ringing. “This thing is a total piece of shit! It’s completely gutted!”
During his screwing around, the ker-chunk of the trunk unlocking could be heard throughout the garage.
Neziul
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Evil Ghost Note
