Into the Shadows

Chapter 5: The Professionals

We were greeted at the door of the hotel. Our car was valeted, our bags were brought up to our rooms and we were escorted to the check in counter. They were very nice and professional. I had to stop them from taking two of the bags though. One was my little back pack that had all my IDs and important information in it and the other was the big camera's carrying case. 

"Here, I'll take the camera." Jake said, taking it from me when he saw me struggling with the camera bags. 

"Thank you." I gave it to him and put my backpack on and grabbed the big camera's carrying case in one hand holding the other out for the vlog camera, but Jake had already headed inside behind the boys with it. 

He was doing my job, but whatever. I'm not complaining. Less work for me for now. Tonight, I'm going to be editing like crazy to try and keep up with the footage we get every day on the trip and save us from having to buy twenty memory cards. I was also going to download a copy of all the footage on my laptop just to make sure that we didn't lose any of it. 

At the check in counter, we found out that the people who had called Sam on the phone the other day were wrong. We were in the hotel's most haunted room, Number 333. The boys tried to ask the man behind the counter some questions about the legend and the hauntings but he was not allowed to answer. He said since he had been working there he had never had an issue, but that maybe we would catch something. We laughed it off and headed off to our meeting with the experts, who were both very nice. 

Jake gave me back the camera and sat across the from me with the other guys on a couch while our experts shared a couch to my left. 

The man's name was John Fraiser from the Society for Psychical Research. He was small, young, and soft spoken. He dressed like my freshman year, history of film professor from college, I think they even had the same glasses. 

The woman's name was Rosie O'Carroll from the Ghost Club. She was an older lady and wore a t-shirt with jeans and had her hair dyed a deep red. It was definitely an unnatural color, but it suited her nicely. 

We all introduced ourselves and got right in to business. 

We discussed Room 333 and the legends and stories surrounding the room. Corey seemed a little upset that they hadn't told him all the lore surrounding the room until now. I hadn't know that Room 333 itself was on the docket, just the hotel, but I had read some of the stories online since Sam had told me the locations in advance so I could prepare myself. 

We talked about a murderous doctor, a suicidal prince, a scared journalist, and a cricket player who had been scared by the faucets turning on in the middle of the night by themselves. This prompted a long discussion about their time at the Queen Mary. 

John Fraiser went into a very interesting theory about ghosts being tape recordings, and I was so interested that I nearly forgot to keep the camera focused on him. We got into Corey's experience with the shadow man and our feelings about different sources of energies. 

The talk was giving me a bit of chills when Ouija boards were brought up. I felt my hands begin to shake a bit, but I tried to keep to camera steady. I didn't like to hear about them and think about the past, but I just had to ignore it. This is my job and I need to deal with it. 

I continued panning the camera around and watching the guys talk to the experts and bit my lip to try and stop my shaking. When the experts were finally done and had left, set down the camera on the coffee table and closed my eyes taking a deep breath. 

I felt a hand on my shoulder and jumped a bit. 

"Hey!" Colby said, "Are you alright?"

"Fine!" I said a bit too forcefully, "Why?" 

"You look pale and you almost bit through your lip during that interview... and you're shaking really bad right now. I didn't even notice that until I could feel it, geez."

"I'm fine!" I snapped a bit, "I'm just... jet lagged and my sugar is probably low or something. I'm just going to the bathroom, excuse me." 

I jumped to my feet and headed off in a direction. I wasn't even sure I was going to the right place, but I just needed to get out of sight. 

I put my back to the wall, sinking down it to the floor. I put my head between my knees and tried to slow my heart before it could beat out of my chest. 

I finally stopped shaking a few minutes later and leaned my head back against the wall sighing with relief. 

"Are you alright, miss?" a man in a black suit with a white undershirt asked, as he draped his white cloth across his arm. 

"Yes, I'm just fine," I brought my hands up to my face rubbing my eyes, "Don't worry!" 

But by the time I finished rubbing my eyes, he was gone.