The Garrison Project

Chapter 1

It was exactly the sort of thing she had been looking for: a mundane occurrence that becomes a supernatural tale in the telling. Someone posts footage with something a little strange in it. Someone else elaborates by adding on a string of tragedies. Then at a dinner party, it gets brought up as a ghost story. If Molly weren't doing her master's thesis on urban legends, would she tell a friend over lunch about this family plagued by a poltergeist, even though she never knew them and never saw the video? Would she add her own flourishes, having forgotten some of the details Keith had mentioned? Would her friend then go out in the world to create the next slightly different version?

This was how they spread. Could she catch this one in its infancy?

"Keith, would you be able to send me that link?"

***

Day 3: Demolition Day

It's obvious from the start that the video was not created by professionals. The basic graphic at the opening is nothing but a cheap in-camera title card, with the heading, "The Garrison Project," and the title of the episode.

A man in a denim shirt adjusts the camera angle while staring into the lens. He looks to be in his late twenties. His jaw is square and he has clear, hypnotic blue eyes. He's attractive enough to be an actor. So is the woman he retreats to and poses beside.

She's small-more than a head shorter than him. And despite the oversized work gloves on her hands and the bandana wrapped around her head, she's striking. A stray curl of dark hair escapes her doo-rag and highlights her pronounced cheekbone. Her face is without blemish and her skin has a tanned, healthy appearance.

But the awkwardness of their introduction dispels any thought that this might be scripted or fake.

"Hi. This is Charlie Garrison."

"And this is Mary Garrison."

"And welcome to our new home. In our last episode, I...we took you on the tour. Today we are going to opening up this wall behind us."

"Goodbye, wall," Mary says smiling and patting the plastered surface behind her. "Can't wait to be rid of you."

"We've already had an engineer in and he's confirmed that it's not loadbearing. So we're going ahead with our plans and turn the dining room and the den into one room."

"As you might remember, we can't even fit our table and chairs in here. And the den is practically a closet. This won't just give us a fabulous place to entertain, it will also improve the entire flow of the house."

"That's right." Charlie pauses and for a second it seems as though he's forgotten what he was about to say, but he recovers with a stammer. "Now we have to walk all the way through the house to get to this room." He diagrams the path on his palm. "With this wall gone, we'll be able to reach it from both the kitchen and the entry hall." His index finger makes a full circle on his hand.

"Foyer," Mary corrects, drawing out the last syllable and rolling it for emphasis. "It's a foyer."

The sound of children can be heard. It's nothing but a vague commotion of squabbling but then a shrill voice screams, "Stop it. Stop it. It's mine."

"Henry, leave your brother alone. No, don't come in here. It's too dangerous. Play at the table until we're done. What did I just say? Stay in the kitchen." Charlie marches off past the camera and the image cuts in the first and only edit of the broadcast.

After the flicker of missing footage, the lens is focused on the corner near the one small, high window. Mary is preparing to make her first swing with the sledgehammer. She pumps it back and forth like a baseball player warming up with a bat. The weighty head drags the tool down and she lacks the strength to keep it level, so by the fourth practice swing, Mary is swinging it like a golf club. She lets loose and a chunk of plaster the size of a dinner plate comes off and crumbles to the floor. Cracks spread out over the dull white surface like a spiderweb.