The boys spent most of the rest of the afternoon editing a TikTok of the video, and then most of the evening watching the views creep up and answering questions from their viewers. A lot of people seemed to be as confused about the mist as I was, but there were also a lot of people who claimed to see it clearly, and even a handful of people who claimed to see more than just the mist. Not a ghost, exactly, but something else that wasn’t visible to anyone else who looked at the video. Just an afternoon with them, and I was already understanding why they may have originally been skeptical of my abilities.
Around 8:00, though, the boys started quickly gathering all of their ghost equipment so we could head toward the Peters Building. I wasn’t expecting to leave so early, but Caitlin explained that we needed time to scope the building out ahead of time, to make sure there were no hazards for us, but also to set up the static cams. So, soon after that, we headed out.
I had, of course, googled the Peters Building before this whole thing had started, but it hadn’t prepared me for just how terrifying the building looked in the dim light. Another commonly held ghost belief is that spirits are more active at night, and I could totally understand why. In the dark, especially prior to the invention of modern lights, shadows danced along the walls in ways that made it seem like the spirits were out to play. In reality, though, it’s just as likely to see a ghost in the daytime, if not more likely. It just kind of depends on the person, ultimately. If someone was often up in the middle of the night when they were alive, then it would be common to see them up in the middle of the night after death. But most of the time, ghosts were like people, and their habits followed them past the grave.
As a result, while I’d done plenty of spirit investigations, I tended to frequent the buildings in the middle of the day. The few places I’d been to in the middle of the night had been in the city, and while the building itself was not well lit, there were still the sights and sounds of the city right outside the window. The Peters Building, however, had been built several miles outside of town, so to get there, we needed to drive down a winding gravel road surrounded by dark trees that scratched out at our car. Caitlin drove the rented SUV down the road like she’s been there a thousand times, though, which made me feel just a little bit calmer.
“I can’t believe we’re going back already,” Liam said, reaching over the back seat to try to grab one of the several cameras he’d brought with. “I think this has got to be a record for the most times someone’s been at the Peters Building.”
“Still can’t come anywhere close to the amount of times that some channels have been to the Conjuring House,” Luke said, typing something into his phone. “Some groups make that their second home.”
“At least the Conjuring House isn’t definitely full of lightly crumbling asbestos,” Liam argued, finally grabbing hold of a camera. He flipped off the lens cap and turned it on, quickly whipping it around to face himself. “And we’re back on the road to the Peters Building again, this time with our good friend, Andi! If you missed the last video, to get you caught up, Andi can see ghosts, and she’ll be our key to finally making contact with Grady!”
“You should include a clip from the TikTok here,” Luke said, sliding his phone into his pocket. “Andi sees ghosts all the time, but she’s even better at bringing them out into the open. We captured this footage just last night.”
“That sounds cheesy.”
“We’ll fix it in post,” Caitlin added.
“Do you think we should do the proper intro here, or should we wait until we’re in the building?” Luke asked.
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Caitlin shrugged. “Probably in the building, but it doesn’t matter, because we…are…here!” She drawled out the last few words as she pulled around the corner, the shape of a dark, industrial style building popping out from behind the trees.
“Fuck yeah!” Liam said, leaning between the front seats to get video of the approaching house. “I swear you get us here faster every time, Cait.”
“Probably just me breaking through the space-time continuum,” she giggled.
The house approached, blocking out what little of the moonlight we still had. On the steps, though, there was a bright light, and when I squinted, I was able to see an old man and woman standing on the steps holding it. She waved her arm as we got closer.
“Nancy!” Caitlin said, after parking the car right in front of the steps and practically flying out to greet the old woman, completely ignoring the old man. “Thank you so much for taking the time to let us back in so soon!”
“Nancy is the caretaker for practically all of the haunted locations in this part of Florida,” Liam leaned forward again to whisper to me. “Caitlin is always so worried about being super sweet to her, but she keeps forgetting that Nancy absolutely adores us.”
“We’re just like her grandchildren, too,” Luke joked, “so there’s no way she would ever get sick of us.”
I stared at the old woman as she greeted Caitlin with a long hug. Caitlin then started talking animatedly about something, all the while ignoring the old man. He seemed unremarkable to me - he looked wistfully at Nancy and Caitlin, then beamed toward the car as Luke and Liam started to get out.
“And what about the old man?” I asked. I unbuckled my seatbelt and hopped out after them.
“Holy shit, please tell me that you still had the camera going,” Luke said, stopping dead in his tracks and looking at me.
“What?” I asked, horrified, at the same time that Liam said, “I sure did!”
“There’s no old man here,” Liam said, clearly putting on a creepier voice than he actually needed for the video. “The only person who was waiting for us here was Nancy.”
Liam panned over to the building, his camera zooming in on the front steps where Nancy and Caitlin were chatting while the man was watching. “I think Nancy was married at some point though, wasn’t she?”
“I think so,” Luke said, sounding unsure.
“You should go ask.”
“No shit, I’m not going to go ask someone if they had a husband die on them. Who am I, you?”
They continued bickering, but I stopped paying attention to them as suddenly, the man’s eyes locked to mine. It was the kind of stare I’ve felt many times before - the kind that sends a shiver of ice down your bone. The chill of interacting with the dead. As I stood semi-hearing the boys arguing around me, he started walking toward me.
“He must be,” I said, and both of them stopped talking to pay attention. “And he’s headed this way.”
“What does he want? Are we safe?” Luke lightly snapped.
“I don’t know, it’s a bit early in the video to be worried about being possessed,” Liam said, pulling out his phone to look at the time. “We haven’t even gotten a chance to do introductions yet!”
Despite Liam’s protests about time, the old man quickly reached me. He reached out a hand to grab mine, and I felt the icy pricks as his hand wound around mine. “You can see me, can’t you?” he asked. His voice was particularly gruff, as though he was unused to talking. I nodded, and the man looked at me intensely, tears in his eyes. “I need you to tell my wife that I love her and I forgive her.” I nodded again. The old man stared at me for another second, then nodded his head and turned back toward Nancy.
“He just wants me to talk to his wife,” I said. Luke and Liam started asking me questions, but I ignored them both as I walked up to Nancy. When she saw me coming, she gave me a wide smile, but then she saw my face, and her expression turned more into one of confusion.
“Hi, you must be Nancy,” I said, reaching out to shake her hand. She took it, never taking her eyes off me. “I’m Andromeda, and I have a message from your husband.”
“Carl,” the old man added.
“Carl,” I said with a nod, and Nancy gasped throwing her hands over her mouth. Her eyes sparkled just about as muhc as Carl’s had.
“Carl’s still here?” she asked. I nodded, and she sighed, but a light smile returned to her face. “The old fool never could let anything go.”
“He says he loves you, and that he forgives you.”
She smiled, looking around as though she would be able to see him, too. “Tell him that I miss him, and I’ll be happy when I get to see him on the other side.”
I grabbed her hand and squeezed it in the reassuring way that I learned how to do when I was young. One thing I learned is that even if someone seems to be fine after confronting a deceased loved one, they never really are. “I’m sure he’s looking forward to that, too,” I said.
“So long as it’s not anytime soon,” Luke said from behind me. “We’ve got a building to investigate!”