•| Nefarious |•

11

We all stood around the phantom watching its skin drip onto the floor. "What...?" Logan asked striving at the group. "Oh, you're up." I turned away from the black figure and looked at him.

"Are you feeling any better?" Taylor looked towards him with a worried tone. "...not really." He looked towards the phantom. "What happened to it?!" He stared at the big pile of goop with eyes coming out of it.

"Turns out if these things are exposed to light for too long, they start to wig out and turn to goop." Aiden laughed. "Like their body starts to twist, and bubble, and spaz-" Logan since turned pale thinking about it.

"Okay, stop. I think he gets the picture. Now quit before you make him sick." Tyler looked at him in disgust. "Since he's awake now, let's talk about Savannah." Her continued.

"We can't keep hoping that things will go back to normal on their own." He complained. "And we can't risk getting stuck there permanently." Ashlyn remarked back at him.

"Um...going back doesn't mean we have to go back to the house again, or interact with the phantom, right?" Taylor nervously asked. "Maybe we can just search around for someone who might know something? The locals are bound to know something."

"We've been reading myths, lore, and have watched who-knows-how-many investigations about Savannah for the past two weeks, and still haven't found anything useful." I looked to around at the group. We all sat in a circle in the back of the bus.

"I'll agree to avoiding the place and only searching from local information. That way we don't have to risk anything." Tyler crossed his arms across his chest.

"If we don't go back to the Sorrel Weed house, then I'm not against...going to Savannah." Logan nervously said. "Ben what about you?" I asked him.

He typed on his phone before showing us he doesn't care and he goes with whatever Aiden decides. "Hm? I don't care either way. Both options seem fun." Aiden put his knee up to his chest and rested his elbow on it.

"....I don't think this was an accident. There's the possibility that lady did this on purpose and we could run into her again. There might even be others like her." Ashlyn thought.

"So you're against going?!" Tyler yelled at her. "No, I'll go. But only if we wait a year." "A year?! We're gonna be stuck in here a year?!" I yelled out. I understood what she meant but a year seemed like a lot.

"Calm down, there's no guarantee that even if we go back, we'll find a way out of here. Plus, none of us have a car or license." Ashlyn tried to calm me down. I rubbed my face and stood up walking off the bus to get some air.

I sat on a pile of tires and put my head in my hands just letting my thoughts take over. 'Why did the lady choose us? Is it because we were there when we were? My mom never came back when she went so maybe she knew that?' Before I could think any longer Tyler came out.

"You doing okay? You just ran out." He said leaning against an empty bus near my tires. "Why are we stuck here? Out of all the people in the world why did it have to be us?" I rubbed my forehead.

"We're gonna get out of here you're gonna have to trust me. Like you said to me, we will find a way out of here no matter how long it will take I'm always here for you." He smiled at me and lightly bumped my shoulder.

"Promise?" "Pinky promise." He said holding out his pinky for me to grab with mine. "Ashlyn said we should train and research in this year." He let his finger go. "Now come on we're gonna go over more stuff, I came out to also grab a white board she said to grab."

I smiled and helped him bring the abandoned white board inside the bus. "Did we really need this?" Tyler crossed his arms over his chest. "Alright so this will be our first goal." Ashlyn started to write on the board with a random marker she found.

'Main objective: Gun shop' it said. "Okay...how are we gonna get there?" Tyler asked her. "We'll need to fortify the graveyard walls and get the jeep to the grave yard. We need a vehicle to drive to the gun shop. My parents jeep is closest so we'll bring it to the graveyard. However, the phantoms got over the walls last time. I'm not sure how, but we need to figure out a way to stop it from happening again so when we get the jeep, any phantoms following us won't be able to get in. Anyone got any ideas?" Ashlyn ranted on.

Ben stood up and grabbed out of a bag a red notebook and a pencil. He started to draw and then opened it up showing it to the group. "Barbed wire?" It said with an image of barbed wire at the top of the wall.

"I don't think that will work because they're phantoms and they already change shape from light so who knows if they can change shape to not be affected by that." I put my head on my chin and tilted my head.

"Since their body doesn't react well to light, why don't we just have some large light fixtures on the wall?" Aiden asked, the most intelligent thing I've ever heard him say.

"I'm not sure if the generator has enough power to keep those lights on. Most of the power goes towards the door. If the lights went off every time we opened the door, it wouldn't be very helpful." Ashlyn thought. "Then, solar lights maybe?" Logan thought.

"That could work, but how are we supposed to get them?" I asked the group. "Ah, you can leave that to me. I haven't been using my allowance money lately so it's built up a bit." Aiden pointed to himself. "Allowance? How much do you have?" Ashlyn asked. "About——."

'There was bound to be one rich kid.' I thought staring at him. "Anyways, I have a card, so I can order the lights online and have them shipped here." He said. "We can do that tomorrow, oh, before I forget Aiden can I borrow your knife?" Ashlyn stuck her hand out.

"Sure." He handed her the knife. "What do you need it-" He was cut off by the sound of Ashlyn slicing her hair off. "These need to go." She said holding the braid in her hand.

We all walked through the hallways making our way to class. "Are you able to order those lights during lunch?" Ashlyn asked Aiden. "I should be, yeah."

"Aren't your parents going to be confused when the lights arrive though?" Taylor asked him. "Nah, they're on a trip right now. Probably won't be back for a few months."

I noticed Tyler tense next to me. "Oh, I was wondering where the nerd was." He said looking ahead. All of us turn our heads to see Logan being yelled at by a boy.