Crossing Over

Chapter 4

Cameron crossed the room and opened the fridge. He grabbed a soda out of the door and then pulled up a chair across from Rob.

"So," Rob said, nodding at him amicably, "where's your girlfriend?"

"Oh come on," Cameron said, annoyed. "Not you too. You know we're not together."

"Yeah," Rob said, "you've mentioned that. What's the holdup, you like her right?"

"Well, yeah," Cameron replied.

"Then, man I don't see the problem."

" The problem is," Cameron said, with frustration " that I have no idea how she feels and that's kind of important."

Rob snorted. "As much time as you two spend together she either likes you, or her home life is ridiculously boring."

"I'm the only person here she knows," Cameron said.

"Man all I can say is you better ask her out soon because once the guys around here see her she'll have plenty of options. That girl is hot." Rob said sincerely.

"Trust me I'm aware," Cameron mumbled, running a hand through his hair.

"Actually I kind of need some advice in that area if you don't mind?"

"I'll help with whatever I can." Rob said, "Only let's talk while we work because I really need the cash. I have a date with one of the cheerleaders from Bedfield next weekend and I am beyond broke." He said sticking his plate in the sink and heading for the back door.

Cameron followed him out as they headed toward the backyard and the shed where Mr. McCray kept his gardening tools.

"So what's the issue?" Rob asked as he opened the shed door and stepped inside.

"Andra is interested in Savannah Miles's old place."

Rob wasn't looking at him, but he immediately froze at the mention of the house. His shoulders visibly tensed and Cameron was surprised to see a shudder run through his large frame. Unable to see Rob's face Cameron had no idea what could possibly be going through his friend's head.

"What do you mean interested?" Rob asked cautiously.

"Andra has a Youtube channel and she's got quite a few followers on different social media forums. They discuss this type of stuff together. Ghosts, haunted houses, basically anything paranormal. She wants to research the house, maybe even talk to some of the people involved, but at the very least she wants to go inside."

Rob turned to look at him now. The color had drained from his face, and he looked more than a little sick. He sat down hard on a metal drum his dad had been using to store old pool equipment running one large hand back and forth over his close-cropped blonde hair. He looked up with an expression that Cameron couldn't interpret.

"I don't think you want to do that." He said, matter of factly.

Cameron couldn't ever remember having seen Rob like this, and they had known each other since kindergarten.

"That place is the real deal. You have no idea, Cam. I don't know what it is, but there's something up there."

"How can you know that?" Cameron asked as he dragged a lawn chair out of the corner and sat down across from him.

Rob took a deep breath before he spoke again.

"A few months ago Drew and I were out riding around. We were just bored ya' know? So Drew gets to talking about how we should go up there and see if the ghost is real. I thought he was just joking around, but it turns out he was serious. I didn't want to seem like I was scared, and I thought he would change his mind but he didn't."

"When we got there it was just starting to rain. We walked around the outside of the house, but everything was locked up tight. We had decided to just head back to the diner, and grab a burger when Drew saw the cellar behind the house. The door was broken, so we went in that way."

"The cellar was damp smelling and pitch black. Drew used the flashlight on his phone, so we could see. We could just make out a set of stairs on the other side of the room so we followed them up into the kitchen. He started talking about how creepy the house is, and about how no one is going to believe we were there. Next thing I know, he's snapping pictures of everything, as proof I guess."

"There was just something wrong with the place. It didn't feel right from the start. Did you know the furniture's still in the house?" He asked in a shaky voice. Cameron shook his head. "Yeah me either," Rob said. " It was the creepiest feeling like someone would be back at any second."

"We had to go through the living room, and Drew's still taking pictures. Even with the light on his phone we still couldn't see much, but by then it had started to storm outside. We made it out to the front door and it had these huge windows on either side of it, and a staircase directly in front of it. Every time the lightning would strike it would light up the entryway. We were still looking around when Drew started freaking out saying there's a light on upstairs."

"The thing is Cameron, there's no electricity in this house. Drew had messed with the breaker in the cellar before coming up into the kitchen. It was completely dead"

"We started up, and man honestly, I've never been so sick in my life. We got to the top of the stairs, and there's a room off to the left. The door's open just a little, and we could see the light coming around the door. We could tell just by looking that it wasn't a candle or a flashlight. I didn't want to go anywhere near it, but I felt like I didn't have a choice like something was pulling me in that direction."

"So we got to the door, and we can hear someone singing. We could hear her." He said rubbing his hand over his head again. " It wasn't until later we figured out what she was singing. Drew had it stuck in his head. He just kept hearing it over and over again for days after that. He looked up the lyrics and found out it was from this song called Wonderwall."

"When we got to the door Drew opened it slowly, and it looked like any normal girl's room. There was a table beside the bed and the lamp that sat there was plugged in and burning like it was the most normal thing ever. The bed wasn't made and it looked like somebody had been sleeping in it."

"It didn't look like a room in a house that had been abandoned. The whole time we're still hearing that song like some kind of broken record and this lamp is still on in a house with no power. I was just starting to think we had maybe just creeped ourselves out when there's a huge flash of lightning. The lamp made this loud popping noise and then went out. At the same time, the singing stopped. We weren't sure what to do, so we just stood there like idiots. Then there's another flash of lightning and before the light died out we saw her."

"She was sitting cross-legged on the bed like she'd been there the whole time, except we knew she hadn't. She was staring at us and she had this look on her face like she'd been crying. She looked as real as you do Cameron, but I swear, she wasn't there until that moment. The worst part was when the lightning died out we could still see her eyes. They were silver, and they were glowing."

"I couldn't tell you what happened after that because I ran. Drew almost knocked me down trying to get to the stairs. We didn't even bother going back through the cellar. We just went straight out the front door."

"I don't think either one of us said a word until we were almost back to Drew's house. He made me swear that I had seen her too and that he wasn't losing his mind, and then he made me promise we would never talk about it again. Of course, he didn't need me to confirm it. He sent me this the next morning."

He began flipping through his phone urgently searching for something. When he found what he'd been looking for he passed the phone to Cameron who stared in quiet disbelief.

"It's one of the pictures Drew took as proof that we were in the house. There was no one in that room but the two of us. I would swear to it."

"Can you send this to me?" Cameron asked handing him his phone back. Rob nodded.

"Man, it's up to you whether you go or not. It's easy enough to get in, and you could probably even find a few people who would talk to you about that place, but as far as I'm concerned I wouldn't be caught dead within 100 miles of that house again."