18.98: An ONC 2023 Thriller

Chapter 8

FIVE YEARS AGO

A successful YouTube channel, academic accolades, a potential television deal. Liv's life could not be going better and all she had to do to enjoy her success was to ignore a crippling sense of doom. That doom was once contained in an inside cloud and a voice breaching the veil. Now, doom had become a sort of frenemy—a pit in her stomach, a constant weight, an unnatural presence telling her that it was only a matter of time before everything was taken from her. At the same time, she couldn't comprehend what it would be like to live without it.

Maybe that was the sign she needed. She had entered onto a path that was both nonsense and dangerous and she had become too comfortable with the direction it was taking her. She should turn around, choose differently. Escape. Sometimes, she reasoned with herself, it takes getting what you've always wanted to realize your desires were delusional to begin with.

Unfortunately, those desires seemed to have been passed down to her younger sister. Whether through nature or nurture, the sisters shared a supernatural proclivity. Unlike Liv, however, Penelope had no reservations—no reason to believe diving headfirst into the paranormal realm held anything but promise.

"I'm eighteen now," Penelope told Liv whenever they argued over her involvement. "I can do what I choose."

"You sure can!" she'd respond. "Go make your own channel. Build your own business, client lists, advertising. That's what I did when I was your age."

"You're impossible, Liv," she'd say and then change the subject. They waged a constant and pointless battle on this subject, one that Helina refused to take Liv's side on.

"She's proven herself over the last year," Helina said. "Fans adore her, and she does a great job. We need to include her."

"She needs to focus on college, not some pipedream that more than likely will fall through."

Helina frowned. "You don't spend enough time manifesting what you want, Liv. I want this. Not just for me, but for you as well. And for Pen."

This pipedream, as Liv called it, was a potential contract to take their internet show onto a television station as soon as they graduated from college, filming in haunted locals in far-flung corners of the world. Liv viewed this opportunity with apprehension (What about her science degree? What serious employer would take her seriously if she was visibly pursuing work in what they would view as a pseudoscience?), Penelope with naïve joy, and as for Helina, it seemed to signify the pinnacle of everything she'd been working on her entire life.

This argument, with its impending doom or promising outcome, was curtailed for the weekend by the arrival of Helina's older brother, an architecture grad student back in Helina's corner of the Pacific Northwest. One of the first questions out of Graham's mouth was, "So, what's with this ghost shit, anyways. I don't get it."

This statement, perhaps said in jest with a kernel of truth slipped in, had endeared him to Liv right off the bat. Had it not been for her soon-to-be ex-boyfriend whisking her away for the weekend, she would have spent long hours giving him her take on "the ghost shit," while possibly schooling him on a few other things she considered herself an expert in.

The next week, Helina announced they were to visit a new client. "He owns a farm," she said. "And he's agreed to be filmed, so let's bring Pen and Richie with us."

"A haunted farm? What are we talking about here, possessed pigs? Has his scarecrow come to life to terrorize his family?"

Helina laughed. "Something like that. Put on your big girl boots. This one should be fun!"