𝐃𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐓𝐄 / 𝗏𝗈𝗅𝗎𝗆𝖾 𝗍𝗐𝗈.
chapter twenty, i'm suing you guys
𝗇𝖺𝗋𝗋𝖺𝗍𝗂𝗏𝖾
THE NEXT PART of the night was to hear about all the stories the building had to offer, especially that of the club itself. Earlier in the night, the group met with author and expert of the paranormal, Janice Oberding, who shared a few stories of the Old Washoe Club. Now, they were surrounding the general manager and their tour guide of the night, Justin, while he shared the history and the popularity of the club.
They learned about the popular figures that were apart of the club, as well as some of the sinister things that occurred there, like gambling and prostitution. They also learned the knowledge that the building isn't the only of the city—nearly the whole town of Virginia City is.
To say the core three of Charlotte, Olivia, and Jordan, were not too pleased to know this would have been the understatement of a lifetime.
Now, they were beginning the actual guided tour.
"Is this the ballroom, I'm guessing?" Colby asks the guide as he walks through the door with Charlotte in two beside him.
"That's what it's been called for years. Originally this room was actually the billiards hall, library and became the doctor's office."
"Oh."
Justin begins to tell the story of a young girl named Gretchen, who had actually died in the doctor's office after being struck by a carriage outside the building. "They could not save Gretchen. She did pass in the doctor's office roughly three and a half hours after the accident occurred."
"Like, right here?" Sam puzzles.
"Pretty much right here in this whole space, my friend."
"Oh."
"And I've had some people on tours take photographs through that far left open doorway, and every now and again, they will capture what looks like a little girl in Victorian-esque style clothing standing by the plaster wall, and she's also transparent." Justin pulls out his phone, presenting the picture to the camera and the group.
Charlotte peers at the phone, immediately gasping at the sight of the very clear figure standing in the pictured doorway. Her shoulders shrug uncomfortably and she shakes her head, walking away from the picture.
The group finds themselves in the next room, which deemed the Shadow People room, much to Charlotte's dismay. "This room is what we call the shadow people room."
Charlotte's head falls back on her shoulders, letting out a slight groan while she runs her hands over her face. "Just our luck."
"Back in 2009, Ghost Adventures was her for the second time ever conducting an investigation in this building, and while they were here, Nick and Aaron came in here to take a series of photos using the flash on their cameras. As you can see, flash and dark spaces while create shadows and things like that. Well, they took one of those images on this back wall, right here, behind you." Charlotte looks over her shoulder at the wall while he flashes a light on it. "Three human shadows appeared but there were only two people in here."
"Being here as long as I have, I've seen all the shadow figures, my employees have seen it. Even people that are up here with us just walking around." Justin moves to show the group another pictured shadow figure, this time much more clear and much more terrifying.
"Oh, my God." Charlotte gasps. Her hand goes over her mouth and she looks to her sister. "I want to go home," she whispers.
Then, to top it all off, he shows them another picture. This time of some sort of creepy crawling figure. "Oh, no. That's definitely a demon," Jordan comments.
"Yeah, there's a little thing that crawls around here." Everyone blinks at him, questioning how he spoke about it so casually. "An angry thing is what we call it and it's known to actually crawl up the stairwell walls and stuff."
Sam points down to the X beneath Katrina's feet. "Is there a reason why there's a X right there?"
Justin nods. "Yeah, so that goes back to the Ghost Adventure guys."
Charlotte smiles, pointing back to Colby as he throws a mini-celebration for himself. "You called it!" Colby laughs with her, moving back to stand beside her.
"So when they were up here doing investigations, they put that taped X down to mark where the night vision camera systems were and it was pointing back at those windows over there, and that's where they actually captured that thing manifesting and walking. It was deemed legitimate and the Travel Channel got a hold of it and offered them a series after that."
"So this building basically created Ghost Adventures."
"It sure did."
The group moves on to another room of the building with a large table int he center. They learn it was where a lot of famous figures played card games, which seemingly made it a fairly haunted part of the building.
Then, when they were walking out of the room, Colby noticed a red mark on Sam's neck. "It's already starting, guys," Olivia says.
"Fucking fantastic," grumbles Charlotte.
Jordan holds her pointer finger out, motioning between Sam and Colby. "If I get scratched tonight, I'm suing you guys."
Sam and Colby look at each other. "Maybe inviting her wasn't such a great idea."
Everyone follows Justin to the next spot on their tour, which is subsequently the same room Sam referenced earlier... where they really did store decease bodies. "This is the Crypt. This is where they had 77 bodies stacked in the winter of 1874."
Charlotte's eyes go wide and she looks between her friend. "Oh, so they really did store dead bodies here."
"Did you think I was kidding?" Sam asks.
"Yes, I thought you were kidding!" Charlotte laughs. "You just casually dropped it like, 'oh, hey, guys, by the way...' Like, who does that?"
Jordan shrugs. "Sam, apperantly."
"Wait, so were the bodies dead before they put them in there, or were they, like, send them to death in there?" Liv questions.
"Well, they realized during winters in this lovely town, our soil breezes like concrete, meaning you cannot dig through it by hand. Meaning, back then, they couldn't create new graves. They, then, took the overflow from the morgue and put them somewhere and that was one of the spots they chose and they used that every winter form 1870 until 1922."
"We had 77 bodies stacked in burlap sacks down in that space."
Colby looks at the camera with wide eyes and his hands on his head. "77?"
"77."
"Seven. Seven." Colby says. Everyone immediately goes in awe, especially considering they had talked about being the number seven earlier on in the night.
The camera cuts to another clip of the group standing around their tour guide as he speaks more about the Crypt and the bodies they had stored there. The group learns about the large number of bodies they had stored there and how they stored them. They let suck in hors breathes to learn they had dropped them off a platform when they piles became to high to stack.
Justin also shares some activity he's experienced in the room, as well as experiences from people on tours. For example, he's had rocks thrown at him while some people have seen apparitions in camera footage and photos. He moves on to show the group the creepiest picture of a little girl.
Charlotte gasps at the terrifying picture, grabbing onto Colby's arm. "Oh, my God! That's so freaking terrifying."
"I don't like it." Colby says.
THE DARKER SIDE
The next place everyone visited was the Red Room, which as Sam and Colby stated previously, was the most haunted room of the building. It was also subsequently on the third floor, which is supposedly rumored to be the most negative and even demonic.
"So, this room is room 12, also called the Red Room. This door is also known to shut on its own. It's slammed so hard on occasion, that it's actually starting to blow out right below the doorknob."
"Damn!" Colby says, moving the camera to get a better view of it.
Olivia shakes her head. "I don't like it in here. This place already feels really, like... filled with dread."
"I know," Charlotte says. "I don't like it here."
Olivia shakes her head as they begin to file out of the room. The girls go first, following after their guide while Sam and Colby stay back for a while. As they leave the room Charlotte makes a quick comment about how hot she's feeling and decides to pull off her sweatshirt, leaving her in a tank top. As she does, Sam comments about a mark on her back.
"Wait, Charlotte... did you scratch your back?"
Charlotte's brows furrow and she turns around, looking at him. "No, why?"
"Turn around."
Charlotte immediately looks at him, slowly realizing what happened. "No. No, shut up. No."
"Turn around." Dreadfully, she does.
"Wait, wait, wait," Colby says. As soon as Charlotte is faced toward the back wall, Sam is pointing to a small part of her upper back, which disappears under her clothing, revealing a few red marks to Colby. "Oh, my God!"
"What?" Charlotte asks, looking at them with a terrified expression on her face. "What's going on?"
"There's multiple scratches down your back," Sam tells her.
Charlotte reaches toward her back, attempting to figure out exactly where the scratches were and if she could feel them. "You can't even reach that!"
"What? Where is it?"
"It's right here." Colby finger presses into the center of her back. "It starts right there."
"There's some right here. Look. all the way down your shoulder," says Sam.
"Yo! Kat, Liv, guys!" Colby calls down the hallway. "Check this out. Look at this. Look at this."
"Charlotte has scratches straight down her back," Sam explains as they walk over. "She did not do that."
"Shut up," Jordan blurts. "No way."
"Oh, is he active again?" Justin says, as if it were nothing.
"Is he active? What are you talking about? What are you talking about?"
"Look at this. She can't even thought that part of her back."
When Jordan and Olivia walk through he doorway, the immediately move to Charlotte and start asking her if she was okay. Then, they look at her back. Jordan gasps, her hands immediately flying to her mouth. "Oh, my God."
Justin moves over, shining a light on the girl's back to see the scratches.
"Wait, stop. You guys are freaking me out." Charlotte mutters out as fear radiates through her body. "Can I see it? Can someone show me?"
"Yeah. Take a picture. It's going to where her shirt is, right there."
Kat pulls out her phone first and opens the camera app. Justin takes the light off and she snaps a quick picture. Charlotte is shaking when she turns around. "What the fuck?" Kat zooms in the picture slightly and Charlotte feels a tear fall down her face while she shakes her hand. "Oh, my God. What the hell?"
Jordan places a hand on her friend's back, rubbing it in slow circles to soothe her fear. "There's absolutely no way you would have been able to do that?" Sam asks as confirmation.
"No." Charlotte tells him. "I can't reach that high."
"Did you feel anything?"
"No. No. I mean, I got really hot when were in the room, that's why I took my jacket off. But I didn't feel anything scratch me."
"So, we were walking behind you the whole entire time. That would've had to have just happened in the Red Room."
Colby nods. "Yeah."
"I literally didn't feel anything, though." Charlotte says, crossing her arms over her body.
Sam points over to Justin. "What did you mean 'he's active again?'"
"Oh, there's a thing up here that scratches people. It's been dormant for... three months?" Justin says.
Sam gasps. "I just got complete chills."
Suddenly, a noise emits from behind Charlotte, causing her to jump up and out of Jordan's arm, moving to the other side of her and standing close to Colby. "What the hell was that?" Charlotte asks while Colby wraps a protective arm around her waist.
"Did you hear that?" Jordan asks, pointing down the hall.
Kat nods. "Yeah, I heard that."
"What the fuck?" Colby curses.
Charlotte shoves her head into Colby's chest with a slight groan. "I don't know how to feel right now. I'm like, pissing myself. I'm so terrified."
Colby passes off the camera to Sam in order to wrap his other arm around Charlotte, tugging her close to him while she hugs him tightly. "She's going to be fine, right?"
Justin nods. "Yeah. Yeah. Tell him to leave her alone. Everything here will not follow you guys unless you steal something and no one's ever done that in a long time."
Liv nods. "Trust us, we will not be taking anything from this place."
"Yeah, we're trying not to haunt out house," Jordan pipes up.
Justin moves on to make a quick call to one of his employees about the scratching, while the group turns more attention to Charlotte. "Can you pull it down?" Colby asks one of the girls as they look at the scratch marks.
Olivia moves forward, pulling down the hem of Charlotte's tank top while they gasp to see the marks continuing further than they thought. "Oh, my God."
"Is there more?" Charlotte asks.
"It goes down more," Colby tells her.
Kat leans over, pointing to the girl's back. "It goes down to right here. So, it's like— it was... all the way."
"Full scratches. And it looks like it was multiple."
"Dude, that might be the largest scratch mark we've ever seen." Sam tells her.
"I'm glad to be of service, Samuel," Charlotte says sarcastically as she moves to stand beside Colby. His hand finds hers, interlocking their fingers below the camera's view as they walk out of the room.
As they do, Colby pulls her aside slightly, telling Sam they'd meet them downstairs. Charlotte looks at Colby with a confused look while he pulls out his phone flashlight, illuminating the ground beneath them while he pulls her aside.
"Wait, where are we going?" Charlotte asks.
"Over here," Colby tells her, pulling her along with him. Charlotte looks around, slightly terrified that they left the rest of the group. Colby looks at her. "Are you okay?"
Charlotte laughs lightly, attempting to lighten her own mood. "I mean, other than the obvious, yeah."
"Char, I'm serious," Colby tells her. "I just... I want to make sure you're okay, because if you don't want to continue, we won't make you. I will literally drive us back to the hotel right now if you say the words."
Charlotte shakes her head. As much as she really did want to get the hell out, she knew she shouldn't. This would have been a total waste if Charlotte's fear put a falter on Sam and Colby's plans and video. "No. No, it's all right."
"Seriously, are you sure?" Colby asks. "'Cause, if we're being honest, I couldn't care less about the video. All I care about is making sure you're okay."
Charlotte nods her head, slowly. "I'm okay, just shaken up."
Colby looks at her before nodding his head. "Okay."
Charlotte smiles up at him. "Thank you for caring."
Colby shakes his head, laughing lightly while he pulls Charlotte into a tight hug. "I care about you a lot more than you think, Char."