I don’t know why I expected them to all act normally after that revelation. There was a part of me, though, that expected them to just accept what I was saying and continue on with the introduction. However, as I should have known, that was definitely not what happened.

When I mentioned the ghost, the first thing that happened was that Caitlin dodged out of the way, as though she was worried about getting hit by something like Slimer from Ghostbusters. She took several steps back, trying to get as far away from me as she could and still be in the room. “Did you get that?” she asked frantically.

“We probably got her voice on camera, but we weren’t pointed that way right then,” Luke said, releasing a clamp on the camera they’d been using for introductions and spinning it around in my direction. “It doesn’t look like there’s anything that we’re able to pick up,” he said, sounding mildly disappointed. “Can you describe what you’re seeing?”

“I guess?” I said, dodging around the men as I tried to see the camera. “There’s two men here, and they’re saying that they were killed during the riot -”

“Before the riot,” corrected the brunette.

“Before the riot,” I said, giving him a small nod of acknowledgment, “and that their bodies were never found, so they haven’t been able to leave.”

“So they can’t see us?” the blonde asked, and I shook my head.

“Only this doll here,” the brunette confirmed, winking at me. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”

“Can you give us more of a physical description?” Caitlin asked, already clearly starting to get exasperated. “The audience can’t see them, so we need to paint them a visible picture if they’re ever going to believe you.”

“Um, sure,” I answered her. “They’re two men, probably in their late 40s, early 50s?”

“I’m 55, but I’m flattered,” said the brunette, giving me a tiny head nod.

“55, apparently. There’s a blonde man and a brunette. The brunette has a mustache and the blonde is slightly taller.”

“And more handsome,” joked the brunette. The blonde didn’t look super comfortable with his joking, but he stayed silent. “He was always the one that all the broads were after.”

“What a magnificent description,” Caitlin sighed, rubbing her forehead coarsely. “Whatever, if it’s what we have, then I’ll take it.”

I nodded and turned my attention back to the ghosts. “My name’s Andromeda.”

“Andi,” Liam corrected from where he stood, and I reflexively rolled my eyes.

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“Andromeda,” I emphasized again. “What are yours?”

“I’m ‘Squint’ Large, and this here’s ‘Baby Face’ Pedone,” he said gesturing to the blonde.

“Squint Large and Baby Face Pedone,” I repeated, and Caitlin immediately pulled out her phone and started typing. “I can’t help but assume those aren’t your birth names.”

“They might as well be, as they’re the only ones we’ve ever gone by,” Squint answered. “So, are you going to help us or not?”

I looked to Luke and Liam. “He’s asking if we want to help him.”

They turned to each other, seemingly communicating without words for a moment. Then Liam said, “It’d certainly be the first video of it’s kind on YouTube.”

Luke nodded. “We’d have to be careful not to have a repeat of the Logan Paul incident.”

“We wouldn’t - I don’t think either of us would dare not to blur a body,” Liam argued.

They bickered for a few seconds more. Squint and Baby Face turned to watch them, seemingly engrossed in their conversation. Eventually, though, they decided that we would indeed be changing the vibe of the video, so they packed up their camera equipment and we headed out, with the two spirits leading the way. Which, I guess meant I was leading the way for the rest of them, but at least there were no areas of the floor that were breaking in this building. Despite the assessment that it would cost too much to fix up this building, and despite the years that it had been left to rot in the desert, the building seemed to be in pretty good shape.

We walked through the dark down a hallway that was labeled as C block. The only light surrounding us was the lights from the cameras that Luke and Liam brought with. The camera lights swung back and forth across the hall at random, taking in the images of rust and decay. Occasionally, they would swing into a room, and I was surprised by how much it looked like it had just been abandoned that day. Often there were still thin sheets meticulously tucked into the bunk, as though the occupants had fled instead of departing according to schedule.

Squint and Baby Face finally stopped us near the end of the hall and ducked into a large cell with multiple bunks. I followed them, and Liam was close behind, shining the light of his camera so I could see where I was walking. The spirits walked toward the edge of the room and pointed to a large grate. “We were both stuffed in there after Two-Knife Fanella shanked us in a fight,” he explained, and I relayed the information to the group.

“Can you ask him what caused the fight?” Liam asked, forgetting that the ghosts could see him, even if he couldn’t see them.

Squint answered, with almost a whimsical look on his face, as if after all this time, it was almost a fond memory. “There was a commotion - the start of the riot, we soon found out - in another block, so all but one of the guards went to go help. And the guard who hung back… What was his name, Baby Face?”

“Dale,” the spirit supplied.

“Dale, right. He was a little shit. He wouldn’t hardly stop a fight even if someone was trying to fight him. Some of the other guards might have put the fear of God into Two-Knife, but not Dale. So, we was playing cards, and Lady Luck must have been on our side because Baby Face kept getting Aces. And Two-Knife didn’t like that too much. He accused Baby Face of cheating, and I told him to stop being a sore loser. Some words were said, one thing led to another, and we ended up with a shiv in both of our sides.

“By that time, it was obvious that there was something else going on somewhere in the prison, but there was always some fight going on in the prison. Two-Knives took the opportunity from the distraction to shove us into the broken air vent, knowing that they’d never bother to fix it because it was too far from the guards.”

“And he was right,” pointed out Baby Face. “Nobody ever bothered to look into it.”

“They didn’t,” he agreed. “But it wouldn’t have mattered if they did. When the riot started in full swing, he got killed trying to fight his way out.” Squint sighed. “We lot a lot of good men that day. I wouldn’t consider Two-Face among them, but most of the others were part of our family.”

I nodded, not wanting to push too much into their gang dynamics - not because I thought it would be an issue for me, but because I didn’t think it would make for great video material. God, I thought, it hadn’t even been that long, and this was what I was turning into? “And did the guards just never look for you when they discovered you were missing?”

“Oh, sweetheart, they did their best job, which was frankly not very good. When we weren’t around for headcount, they just assumed we went on the run. I think we got our names out on America’s Most Wanted for a bit, didn’t we Baby Face?” The blonde man nodded.

“I don’t know if there’s a good way to bring it up,” Liam said slowly, after I’d repeated the story to them, “but wouldn’t somebody have noticed the smell?”

Squint laughed. “This guy has never been in a prison in his life, has he? You tell him I said, bud, if they had a way to ethically add that scent into prisons, I bet they would. They’re not going to get rid of something that makes our lives worse in here. Now,” he said, gesturing to the vent cover, “are you going to help us, or are we going to stand around gabbing all night?”