24 - Prep

After David agreed, the family was asked to let the crew and the cameramen start setting up everything and were asked for locations where incidents happened so that they could have cameras put there.

After hours of work, they had set up cameras, lights, recorders, and other devices in and out of the house preparing for the investigation at night with the van being used as a nerve center.

However, there were a couple of incidents in-between.

Jack decided that with so much fresh blood and a good while before the real investigation starts to not waste his energy regen.

While the crew set things up the first person to experience something was Billy.

.....

Billy was placing infrared cameras before connecting them to their wifi so they would be viewable at the nerve center.

As soon as he entered the living room he saw out of the corner of his eyes a shadow moving in the corner of the room for a split second before it vanished.

"Who!?!" Billy jumped in fright almost dropping the gear he was holding.

When he looked over and didn't see anything Billy knew he had to make sure a camera was placed to look in that corner.

He placed one he was holding and set it up before rushing to tell the crew what he saw.

.....

The second incident happened an hour later when a cameraman and Adam were setting the equipment up in the basement.

Adam and the cameraman were working on their own thing when the lights suddenly shut out.

"Shit, what happened?" Adam cursed and asked the cameraman who was closer to the staircase.

"Lights are on upstairs so the power couldn't have gone out." He replied to Adam as he stumbled a little in the dark to the switch before he noticed it was flipped off.

"The switch was flipped." He said with cold sweat as he flipped it back on.

Just as he did and turned around to look at where Adam was he saw Adam but behind Adam was a shadow figure.

"OH MY GOD!" The unnamed cameraman's eyes widened in fright and cried out.

"What?!?" Adam saw the cameraman look at him and yell, So he tensed up and looked over his shoulder but saw nothing.

"Boo." Suddenly Adam heard someone whisper right in front of him.

He jumped and stumbled backward in fright falling on his bottom.

"Fuck." Adam cursed in pain as he rubbed his butt.

He knew that voice wasn't the cameraman and that just frightened him even more.

The cameraman gathered himself after seeing Adam fall and hurried to help him up.

"Are you ok? I'm sorry, I saw a shadow figure behind you." The cameraman thought he caused Adam to stumble.

"I'm fine. it's not your fault. I heard someone whisper in my ear when I turned." Adam reassured the cameraman.

"Shit looks like Billy wasn't seeing things. This place is super active."

Adam said and thought that he had to finish up here and report to Zach.

Jack meanwhile was having the time of his life. He was glad they decided to investigate the basement because of the half energy cost in the basement.

Jack was exhilarated at their expressions of fear and checked his gains so far.

[15%]

'So much before the investigation even started and there is still plenty of time.' Jack thought excitedly.

.....

The third incident happened after Zach received the report of another shadow figure and voice from Adam.

He decided to check out the basement himself.

Jack even though he hadn't recovered his energy chose to still use some more with this perfect chance.

Zach made his way into the house while being a bit uncomfortable because of the energy.

Although he isn't as sensitive as James is, it still affects him a bit.

He brought with him a recorder and a camera to use and then place down there.

[

Detected newly encountered spirit medium/s.

Name: Recorders

Effect: 1 energy cost per word

]

Jack looked at the system notification for the recorders and decided to spend a little more energy before stopping for now and recharging so that he made sure he was full-on energy for tonight.

Zach got down to the basement and made sure he was standing in view of the camera that was stationed down there.

"Is there anyone down here?"

{"No."}

"What's your name?"

{"Jack"}

"Why are you here?"

{"I died... duh..."}

"Show yourself."

{"..."}

Zach started asking questions with a good 5 to 10 seconds of silence in between.

After he was finished he was about to stop the recording when Jack decided to mess with him by focusing on his will on his finger and poking him in the neck.

Zach felt something touch his neck and he turned to look behind him while wiping his neck to make sure nothing was on him.

Seeing nothing and feeling nothing on him he asked one final question.

"Did you touch me just now?"

{"Yes"}

Then he gave a few seconds of silence before he replayed the audio he just recorded.

When Zach heard the reply to his first question he stopped and replayed it multiple times in excitement.

He pointed the camera at him so it was recording his wide-mouthed face and held the recorder next to his face and let it play completely.

His face changed multiple times from amazement to shock and then to a final weird complex face.

"This spirit is a bit sarcastic." Zach thought as he listened to Jack's replies.

He then started asking more questions and telling Jack to show himself but never got another response.

Seeing he isn't getting anything else he decided to go up to never center and show the crew what he got.

.....

The final incident occurred when they were finishing up and checking the cameras to make sure everything was in order

Jack had regained most of his energy when he thought to use a bit more in the basement.

With a goal and idea in mind, he headed to the basement and went straight to his goal.

The stationed camera.

He used a couple of energy to move its view to the right a little.

At the nerve center, Janes was watching the camera monitor when he saw the camera in the basement move.

"Zach!!" He yelled.

"Yeah?!" Zach asked as he came into the nerve center.

"Come look the camera in the basement moved." James explained while pointing at the screen.

"Is anyone down there?" Zach asked to confirm that it wasn't somebody accidentally hitting it.

"No, no one went down the stairs."

James was watching the cameras the whole time they were hooked up snd didn't see anyone go down to the basement in a while.

"It's really active down there." Zach stated as he debated on putting more gear down there.

Eventually, because of the activity in the basement, Zach decided to focus their investigation on the basement and put extra equipment in there.

Jack didn't think that just by taking advantage of the 50% energy cost in the basement he would encourage them to focus there and provide him with such a good opportunity.

.....

Later that day.

Sarah had come back from picking Angelica up from the bus stop and taking her to her mother's.

It was almost time for the sun to set when everyone ordered takeout and started eating dinner before they started the live broadcast.

With so much activity already even before they started for real they couldn't wait to get in there.

"Good, everything is almost ready."

"When we start the live broadcast you guys will take us for a tour and explain the most memorable incidents you have experienced."

"Right after that, we will have you leave for the night and we will start our investigation." Zach went over the plan with the family again after everyone finished eating.

"Sounds good." David replied as he and Sarah readied the notes that they took earlier while trying to remember every incident in the house.