"Ready?"
"Yeah."
"Okay, recording... Now."
I look into the camera. "Hi, my name's Arnold, and you might recognize me. Maybe this will be a refresher." I point down, knowing we'll edit in the scene from the news reports later. After a few more seconds of pausing, I take a deep breath. "So, you might look at this and freak out, or think it's fake. But I promise it isn't. In fact, everyone in that video is right here."
The camera pans towards Dee so we're sharing a screen. "I'm Dee. You might know me as that girl that died. But obviously, I'm not dead."
The camera pans again. "Yeah, we got news for you. We're alive. The whole death was faked." Lilah deadpans. "Before any of you doubters say we're wearing make up or something. Or that we faked the whole thing for drama. We assure you, it's real."
Then a hand grabs the camera, and it rocks until it's gripped. Felipe pulls it up near his face. "Recognize me? Yeah, I'm that monstrous guy. Doesn't register yet does it?" He transforms his face, eyes going red and teeth growing until they poke out of his mouth. He smiles. "Does that look fake to you?"
"And what about me?" Lina grabs the camera, and for a second, she's human, then she transforms.
"As you can see," I say, turning the lens towards me. "We're not exactly human. But it isn't our fault. In fact, we're going to show you pretty soon how messed up everything is. So stay tuned in to this. We'll be livesteaming tomorrow."
I give it a few seconds for editing time, then cut it off. This is the fifth time we've taken this, and at this point, I think we must have enough footage. I look over to Hattie, who nods, and takes back her camera. I watch as she plugs it into her computer, waiting.
"It's going to take quite awhile," she says. "We have a lot on here."
I sigh, then look at the others. "Do you think it'll be done now?"
"Why are you so nervous about this take?" Felipe asks. "We can do it again."
"It's because he's distracting himself from the implications of this going horribly wrong," Carmine says.
I sigh, and don't reply. The others continue talking, but I sit in silence until Hattie announces that she thinks a few of these look good. After some light editing, we rewatch it.
"I think it looks good." Dwayne says begrudgingly.
"Are we ready to post?" I ask.
Hattie opens up YouTube. "Gotta make an account. What should our channel name be?"
"Like that matters," Lina says.
"The Haunters," Worth says.
"That's dumb," Dee replies.
"Does anyone else have any ideas?" Hattie asks.
"We could just use the companies name," I say.
"Please, don't," Lilah says.
Hattie types something in. "Looks like we're going with Worth's idea."
The others seem disappointed, but there's nothing we can do about it if we have nothing better. The sooner we get this up, the sooner it's over. Hattie continues putting in various other information until she stops abruptly, finger hovering over the button that changes everything. "Are you sure you want to do this?"
"Yeah," Lilah says.
Hattie glances all around the room, and slowly, some of us agree along with her, heads bobbing, voices going on about the whole thing. I don't say anything at first, just surprised so many of them are into it. At this point, it's unanimous, whether agreed upon because of no other choice or because they actually want this.
She clicks.
It's done. She shuts her laptop quickly. "I don't want us to look at this for a bit. We'll try to enjoy what peace we have before."
Someone laughs. What sort of peace are we supposed to have? I don't know. Clearly, the silence is speaking louder than the words.
"Let's have the rest of our ice cream," Felipe says, moving to take it out of the freezer. When he hands out the bars, I start to eat mine, but I don't really taste or enjoy it. It's cold. Shocking. Wonderful, yet cruel. I can't remember the last time I had ice cream it's been that long.
"It's kinda funny, how solemn we look eating dessert," Dee says.
I see a few smiles, but they fade. "I want to know what's happening online," I say.
"Probably nothing," Hattie says. "It'll be a miracle if more than a few people watch this at all."
"Can we check?" I ask.
"Please, let's just finish our ice cream," Lina says. Aka, she doesn't want to see it.
I focus on the creaminess of it. The cold. The miracle that it exists in a world where so much sucks. Hattie's phone pings. "Sorry, I forgot to put it on silent." But before she turns it down, there's pings coming in so fast, I didn't know it was possible.
I look at her, and raise my eyebrows. She sighs, but doesn't move yet. Waiting for someone else to look interested.
Well, we all look interested, but the fear is getting in the way of some of it.
"Maybe we shouldn't have done this," Dee suggests.
"Too late now," Dwayne mutters, sounding angry. He wouldn't get in the video earlier, and I don't blame him. Through that, he could possibly be exposing his own family. Then his phone rings.
"Hey, Mamá," he says. I watch as his face goes serious, and he looks at us disappointedly. Then his teeth grit together. "Yeah, Mamá, we got it under control. We know what we're doing. No, you don't have to worry about us." Silence, then nervous laughter. "No, we're not planning anything."
I hear her talking rapidly on the other side of the phone. Something about being careful and him not listening and asking when he'll be home because she wants another family dinner.
"Once I'm home I'll do the dishes for a month."
Someone snorts, and immediately she hears.
"Sorry, you just called right after we all posted, and now we're having ice cream."
"Ice cream?" I hear her yell.
Dwayne flinches. "Yeah, sorry, Mamá."
"Oh, don't give me that. You're not sorry." She's really mad now, and I feel bad for Dwayne. Then softer, she asks a question I can't make out.
"No." Silence. "I love you, Mamá." His face breaks for a second. "Tell everyone else I miss them too. Yeah, I'm sorry. I'll be back home soon." He removes the phone from his ear slowly, like it hurts to do so. The magnetism it had to him breaks, and his hand hands down until he slowly puts his phone in his pocket.
"You could go home," Lina suggests. "Not that we don't want you here, but I know you don't wanna be here either."
"No, I won't. I'm in on this with you guys."
"You don't have to," I say. "I know you don't want to."
"Stop plagiarizing Lina," he says. "You know I'd do anything for you guys."
Part of me worries about that. I don't say anything as I lick the stick of my ice cream clean. As the others finish, we fall into this quiet that is tense like static. One touch and you'd be shocked.
"We should check it," Hattie says.
"Yeah," Dee agrees."
When Hattie turns over her phone, I see the flood of notifications. As she unlocks it and scrolls, her face is shocked, eye wide.
I pull up the video on my phone without having to search for her name. It's already made it to the trending page. It's been twenty minutes and we've already gotten over 100,000 views. Part of me is happy, and the other part is terrified. I scroll down to the comments.
Already with thousands of likes, there's comments claiming it's fake. Others saying it's real. One random dude claiming he went to school with us. Random people debating who is the cutest, and others saying they went to this haunted house and forever were traumatized. Some are calling for a livestream immediately. More are guessing where we're hiding. One person comments how we did it in one shot, and if we don't have a future as actors, we should go into filmmaking. Or vlogging.
Like if you think it's fake.
Like if you think it's real.
Like if you knew these guys before YouTube.
Like if you think they should go into film.
"Do we have a fandom?" Felipe asks.
Part of me wants this to stop this, but I shouldn't. It's working. People seem to like us. No one has left any hate comments that I can see, but it's possibly just filtered out. Replies are amassing under comments about it being faked or not. People are arguing and sending back big paragraphs about evidence. Someone's quoting the Bible. I exit out of it before I let myself get in too deep. An odd sense of dread has taken root from the inside out.
Hattie sets her phone down, and I watch her do it. She raises her eyebrows at me, like she's surprised I can stand it.
Tomorrow, things are going to be different.
Tomorrow, we're going to change everything