The team stared at the clearly uncomfortable man blankly, based off of the presentation they were expecting him to be a stoic superhero. Instead this man looked like an awkward teen, Jackson looked like he was enjoying Dark's discomfort a little too much. "Hey, my names Dark, nice to meet you, I hope we work well together" John said.
Amber looked at him a little annoyed, he looked fit, but he also had a slightly red face, as if he was extremely embarrassed at something. This was the guy that was supposed to replace her, what a joke. "Sadly you guys will have to take time to get to know one another later, currently we have a job we would like you to get started on right away" Mr. Whitman said motioning the two men to take seats at the table.
All of the team knew that Jackson was terrified of Mr. Whitman, so it surprised no one when he immediately took a seat next to an empty chair without question. What did surprise the team, Amber included, was when Dark rolled his eyes, and said "well that didn't take long". What surprised them even more was Mrs. Waters clearing her throat, which made John Dark, the man that was originally going to be their team leader. Do exactly what Jackson had done, and move to the seat next to Jackson without a second word.
Jackson smiled, and nudged John, who nudged him right back, Mr. Whitman rolled his eyes, "right well lets begin your first assignment together". Mrs. Waters pressed a button on her remote, which started the presentation. On the slide was to pictures side to side, they were black and white, looking like they were exceptionally old. "These are the two pictures that were taken in the small down of appleville, west verginia, they are both of the same person", Amber noticed on both of the pictures was a little girl with a smile in the first picture, in the second picture the same smile was worn. Except in the second picture something about the smile looked sinister, the picture gave Amber goosebumps.
No longer wishing to look at the photo, she looked over at the team, they were all paying attention to the presentation, they may goof off but they took work serious. She looked over at the new member, he was paying deep attention to the picture. "well at least he can get serious when he needs too" Amber thought to herself.
"Notice the flower dress she is wearing in both pictures" Mr. Whitman said then the presentation went to the next slide. A picture of an identical dress was shown with mud stains over the white and yellow flower designs that had covered the dress. "When she was possessed back in 1864 the priests took meticulous notes stating that the girl, named Margaret, was "out of control, and had the strength of ten men", now at the time we had no idea what had happened. Now we look back, and we have a couple theories, but this situation is an uncommon one in the least." He said, as his red haired assistant began passing out files to all the team members.
"Now this normally wouldn't be an issue, except that we were sent this." Mr. Whitman said as the slide changed to a video file, Mrs Waters pressed another button, and the video pulled up and started playing. the video showed an alley, next to what looked to be a parking garage, the alley had a little bit of snow in it, but there was no cars going in or out. the time said it was taken at three am. Suddenly there was a flash of gray light, not to bright but you could definitely tell it was there. A little girl walked out into the alley she was wearing a dress that looked like a clean version of the dress that the group had jsut been shown.
The little girl walked out, and for a second all the snow that was falling stopped, then a screech came from the screen. it was so unexpected that almost everyone in the room jumped and looked startled. The camera hadn't had any audio prior to this screech, and the little girl didn't look to move her mouth so it almost seemed to be edited in. Amber looked around, all of her team looked shook, Jackson and Dark looked perfectly fine, in fact Jackson had his trademark smile on. Amber would be willing to bet that if Mr. Whitman wasn't here he would have laughed. Amber looked back at the camera, the little girl looked to have not done anything after the screech. Either she couldn't hear the terrifying screech thing, even more terrifying thought, she was expecting it.
Amber shifted in her chair, she had seen a ton of monsters, but that scream had sounded somehow more terrifying than anything she had seem before. She knew she was being dumb, how could a little girl be that terrifying, but it didn't matter, she could almost feel her mouth go dry.
Then after a while the little girl looked directly up to the camera, which must have been some kind of video camera or something like that, she smiled. Amber's mouth dropped, this little girl, while slightly fuzzy looked exactly like the photo, this was something Amber had never seen before. Then the little girl jumped, it was so fast if the camera hadn't seen the blur of her going by Amber never would have known it happened. In fact it looked to her as if the child had bent her knees, and then got flung up wards. Amber figured she never came down, because the video ended there.
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"Mrs. Sailor your team will go to Appleville, and investigate this, I want you to take meticulous notes about all you find, and then after you have determined if the creature is dangerous or not, we will decide our further course of action" Mr. Whitman stated looking directly at Amber.
"We have already emailed all of the documents needed, in the files are copies of the pictures, as well as some listed theories by our experts who analyzed the footage" Mrs Waters added, after the lights had gone back on in the room. "Alright well you had better get on the RV" Mr. Whitman said to the group, after then leaving.
John
"Well it makes sense why we all met in Kentucky now" I said after Ron, and Satan spawn number two had left (Mrs. Waters). "Yeah, we had better hit the road, it was nice meeting you John" The kid named Edward said, "thanks it was nice meeting you guys too" I said back with a smile. Technically he was eighteen, and not a kid, but he was the youngest of the group, so kid was how I was going to address him until I knew him better. "Ooh I can't wait to catch the evil ghost child" Jackson said, he was always so excited to be in danger. I rolled my eyes, which the leader Amber seemed to notice, she looked at me, making eye contact, then she looked away. Ron probably tried to make me leader just so she would hate me, what an annoying man.
Everyone had left, except me, Jackson and James who had begun walking up to us. Most people would have been scared of a six foot four giant walking towards them, but I had read his file, and he was probably the nicest in the team. "hi, glad to have you on the team I'm James" James said with a wide smile, "John, nice to meet you man, i'm excited to see what you can do" I said smiling back. "John come on, you have to see the rover" Jackson said, before grabbing me, and yanking me out of the door. I smiled on the way, it was nice to have my best friend back.
The "Rover" as they called it, was actually a giant black RV, with was looked to be a horribly spray painted picture of Edwards head. It had red hair, and green everything else, "Wow" I said, "yeah, Eddy likes to paint" Jackson said, then he leaned over "but he's not very good at it". James walked out behind us, "Welcome to your new home for the next week, or longer if you decide to stay", he said. I knew that teams usually got to go to motels, but in rare cases that wasn't an option there would be enough beds inside for us all to sleep. "Oh, and fair warning, Eddy likes to drive, so do ask" Jackson said walking onto the bus.
The bus was way more spacious on the inside, I suspected either magic, or amazing design, there was bunk beds that lined the wall, they weren't huge but they could fit a person, there was a table that looked to be a small version of a dining room table. There was a TV, and mini fridge, right next to a drink cooler, there was a bunch of windows, and a small shower in the back, covered by a door. I was honestly surprised, but I didn't let it show, the team probably thought I was slow after the miss hap with Mrs. Evil. In the front was too chairs the windows where super tinted, which was allowed because of government stuff. The team had all already settled in, the bag that I packed was on a bunk in the back which I assumed meant that was mine.
"alright team, lets get a move on, we can rest up on the drive there then we will decide what to do from there". Amber said at the front of the Rover, in the passenger seat. Eddy put it in drive, and started driving. "It will take about four hours to get where we are going, you should try to settle in during that time" Cass said with a kind smile as I sat down on my bunk.
"fair enough" I replied, I looked around at the team, everyone was doing there own thing, except for Sam, who kept looking up at me. I decided the best course was just to ignore it, and let the situation handle itself. I know I'm a genius. I went over and sat next to Jackson who was at the table across from James, going over the case.
"Any thoughts?" I said to them as I sat at the table, "it says it could be a ghost possession" Jackson replied not looking up. "I doubt it, ghost possession does occasionally grant extra strength, but the draw backs are severe" I said looking at the picture on the table, taken from the video, and cropped on her face. "If it was a ghost possession she would look like Joaquin pheonix's Joker, in little girl form" James gave a laugh at that. "unless maybe its a weaker ghost, maybe one who got a magical boost" Jackson said, sounding lost in thought.
Say what you will about the goofball, he could get down to business when he needed to. That could be it, I guess we will have to check for signs of magical interference when we get there. "It could be a new species, Mr. Whitman seemed to hint that might be it" James said, as Sam came over to sit next to his brother. "I doubt it a new species of supernatural creature hasn't been discovered in like a hundred years" Sam said. "A hundred in twelve, this could be the discovery of a lifetime" James said, with a smile, his brother shooting down his idea didn't bother him one bit.
"I think its some roided vampire, one that has no issue showing up on cameras" Sam said with a confident smile. "If so, we will have no problem putting her down", "true, but that's unlikely" Jackson said typing something on a laptop. "Unlikely, but not impossible, what do you think Dark?" Sam asked looking at me. Jackson actually stopped what he was doing, and looked up at me, I noticed James was also staring at me now. I suspected that Jackson already knew the theory I was working on.
"I think its the reason the wanted me here" I said with a easy smile, "a demon". "A demon!?, I doubt it, its been like ten years since the last demon was known on earth." Sam said, "any demons still here are the weaker poltergeist kind" he added loudly, looking around at the table. Jackson was still looking at me, "For our sake, I hope your right" I said then went back to taking notes on the dress.