Crossing Over

Chapter 7

Andra awoke with a start a scream locked in her throat. Throwing an arm out, she scrambled wildly for her bedside table and the lamp that sat on it. Her heart was pounding in her ears and her skin was coated in a thin sheen of sweat as her fingers brushed up against the base of the lamp. She worked her way up until she felt the knob just underneath the bulb. Switching on the light the room was flooded with its warm glow and Andra felt her heart rate finally starting to slow.

Sitting beside the lamp, was a bottled water she had brought up with her before bed. Picking it up and twisting the cap off, she gulped down half the contents before leaning her head against her knees and letting out a ragged sob. Her bedside clock read 5:00 a.m. There would be no more sleep this morning.

She took several deep breaths trying to steady herself before getting out of bed and heading toward her dresser. The tank top and shorts she was wearing were clinging uncomfortably to her skin. Quickly stripping them off and throwing them in the hamper, she pulled a clean shirt and sweats on before grabbing a scrunchie and her laptop from her desk. She desperately wanted a shower but it was still dark outside and she hadn't quite worked up the courage to step outside her bedroom door yet. 

Andra very seldom ever remembered her dreams but this one had been vivid. She mentally chided herself more than a little frustrated that she had let Cameron's story disturb her the way it had. She was going to have to work on that because they had barely gotten started.  Recurring nightmares weren't exactly one of the memories she was hoping to make this summer.

Going back to her bed, she sat down cross-legged and pulled the covers up over her lap before twisting her hair up into a messy bun. She fired up her laptop and then opened the drawer on her nightstand, fishing out the notebook and pen she kept stowed there, while she waited for the home screen to load.

After her conversation with Cameron yesterday, they had decided that the best way to proceed with this would be to change the names and the locations of everyone and everything involved. Cameron felt that bringing too much attention to this case could cause some backlash for them later.  He wasn't wrong when he said they would have to live here when this was over. She had decided to start by going through all the newspaper clippings she could find online and then work her way out from there. Cameron would be by later today to help with whatever needed to be done. And she was due to put her first video up today. 

They had also briefly discussed using a countdown clock. They couldn't very well announce on social media that they had any intention of going into the house.  If anyone caught onto what they were doing they would stop them before they could start.  The countdown clock would enable them to keep her followers in the dark until they started the live stream. Hopefully, by that time, they would already be inside. There was always the possibility that they could be stopped once the live stream started if someone caught on, but Andra wasn't overly concerned about that. As long as they got into the house, either scenario made for a ton of views.

The home screen finished loading and with an open notebook at her knee and her favorite pen tucked behind her ear, Andra began hurriedly typing in the web addresses of several popular newspaper sites she had found the night before. Before they started talking to people, she wanted to know the facts of the case and not just the local gossip.

After several minutes of searching through various sites and old newspaper clippings, she found what she had been looking for, and the truth to what Cameron had been saying all along.  Several media outlets had covered the tragedy at Pinewood Drive, but none of them had been local. After reading through the articles that had been written she could see that what they had included were merely facts about the case. They hadn't interviewed a single resident.  Here in Inglewood Savannah's death hadn't even made the front page which, considering the size of the town, was odd. The mysterious death of a teenage girl should have been a huge news story in her hometown.