Daylight is gone. The clear white moon peeks between the clouds above us. Its brightness gives off an otherworldly lighting. It casts shadows behind Georgia and Danny in the driveway, making a version of them that is long and twisted. I imagine what it would look like if their shadows tore off and started walking off as if they had a mind of their own...

"Alright, folks," Seth's voice breaks through the silence in the pauses of the occasional electronic beeping. I snap my head up and see him poke his head out of the van. "We ready to go?"

I nod. Danny gives a thumbs up. I glance over at Georgia, who nods stiffly. "Yep," she says shortly.

I tilt my head at her. She avoids my gaze. Something seems off; her shoulders are rigid, and she's standing off to the side rather than front and center. Then again, she's seemed off ever since the ladder incident. When I look over at Danny, I realize he's looking at me through the display on his camera.

"Oh-kay!" Seth says dramatically. "Going live in five...four..."

"Georgia," I hurriedly whisper under my breath. "Are you going to lead or —"

"...two...one...and we're live!" Seth says into his mic, which feeds to the earpiece in my left ear. I peek quickly at Georgia, who is still standing off to the side. My gaze then snaps to Danny, who is pointing the camera at me. Crap.

I swallow hard before putting on my biggest, fakest grin. "Welcome, viewers, to Grimwood Manor!" I say with as much excitement as I can muster.

Gesturing to the lavish exterior behind me, I lock eyes with the lens of the camera Danny is holding. "This is our most ambitious haunt of yet — and dare I say the most dangerous." I pause as the viewers erupt with excitement, spamming various emotes. "You see, Grimwood is the home to the most vicious spirits in the Midwest. Only the brave dare enter... and only the strongest of viewers will watch."

They eat it up. The chat debates whether it will be as scary as we suggest, while some boast their braveness. A sense of pride zaps energy back into me.

I head toward the door of the manor. Georgia is just slightly behind me. Despite the excitement, in the pit of my stomach, I feel ill. I'm so used to Georgia leading the charge while I sweep behind her. But I smile back at the camera instead of pulling her aside and making her tell me what's wrong.

"Are you ready?" I ask the audience as I put my hand on the large door handle. An eruption of yeses surges in the chat with a flurry of nos. "Let's go," I reply and push on the handle. I step to the side and let Danny get a dramatic close-in without us in the way. The night vision catches the interior of the foyer perfectly. The chat loves it.

As we walk in, we admire and comment on the manor, leaving little remarks on the hanging artwork and design. Then, Georgia finally speaks for the first time on stream.

"It's hard to believe all of this will be gone," she says quietly. When I look at her, her eyes are on the large portrait of a woman I assume used to live here. "All of it just gone when they tear the place down."

I glance at Danny, who actually meets my gaze. I go to speak, but his mouth falls open before I do. I don't think he was going to say something, but rather he noticed something. I whip my head back and look where he was staring.

The wooden banister of the staircase is behind me. The clean, dust-free banister. I shudder, but I force myself to look back at him instead of thinking about that.

"What is it?" I ask him. Georgia turns her head.

Danny stares off but shakes his head after a moment. "Nothing."

"Did you see something?" Georgia asks, but she steps toward him. The chat experiences another spurt of activity. I ignore their messages though, and I watch Georgia instead. She strides over to him, her voice high enough to echo off the ceiling. "You did, didn't you?"

He shakes his head again. "I said it was nothing."

The skyrocketing chat is too distracting to not look at. I manage to catch a few messages as they go flying by.

BeeeaBee: What's up with Georgia?

WolfieThe: So fake lmao

realdot: OK I'm really creeped out now

"If you think the hallway is creepy," I say loudly, catching the attention of my co-hosts and the chat, "then wait till you see the rest!" They're going to hate this, but we have to move on. "The ballroom is right around the corner."

Georgia's eyes widen. Danny pauses in his step. My frustration grows into a tedious tension headache in my temple. I plaster on another smile. "Come on, guys! I'm sure it won't be that scary!"

The people in chat beg otherwise.

They both reluctantly follow me into the ballroom. On the way there, I inform chat on some brief history of the manor, including that it originally belonged to a wealthy family who used to host elegant parties, many of them in the ballroom. Then one day, the parties stopped.

That's real. I read it on Wikipedia.

In the ballroom, Georgia moves to the area across from where she had fallen. Danny stays close to me with the camera still on me. I don't know how Georgia does it; a sweat has formed on the back of my neck from the stress. As I move around, catching footage on my helmet cam, someone asks me why the parties stopped. A few seconds after, another person asks if Georgia is okay — I've seen at least twenty messages asking that. I glance over at her. Maybe this will wake her up.

"Hey, Georgia," I call out, and Danny redirects the camera toward her. "The viewers want to know why the Grimwood parties suddenly stopped. You know, right? I forgot."

Her head snaps up. In the night vision, her eyes are glowing like a cat's. At first, she says nothing. I try to quickly think of something — anything — to make up for it. Then, she stiffly steps forward.

"The mistress of the house fell ill," she says, her voice cold yet echoing along the walls of the empty ballroom. "Deathly ill. Her husband spent so much money to cure her. He tried just about everything, but nothing worked. And within a few months of her death, he fell sick with the same illness."

A shiver works its way up my spine. I look over my shoulder. Danny meets my eyes and he looks just as taken aback. "Thanks, Georgia," I say as normally as I can. I peek at the chat to read more messages. But I can't.

The usernames and their messages begin to glitch. Blue and green lines split and jump between messages, blurring and corrupting them.

"Uh," I tap the helmet. "Is the chat bugging out for you guys?"

Danny doesn't wear a helmet so he can't read the chat. Georgia checks hers and when I look over at her, I can tell from the look on her face that the answer is yes.

"I don't know what's going on, Claire," Seth says into my earpiece. "Twitch is fine on my end. It shouldn't be doing...whatever it's doing on your end."

"Can't you fix it?" I ask, the annoyance sharp on my tongue. Georgia, on the other hand, seems nervous. Well, more nervous than before.

Seth sighs. "No. Not without you taking the helmet off and bringing it out to me."

I grit my teeth and look at Danny, who shakes his head. I exhale and look into his camera. "Okay, everyone," I say to the audience I hope is still watching. "We're having some technical difficulties so we can't read the chat, but we will keep going!"

I move toward the center of the ballroom. I grab the spirit box from the belt around my waist. Georgia is still off to the side — I guess this is really The Claire Show now. Danny pushes in closer.

"This," I wave in my hand, "is a spirit box. For those of you who are new, spirit boxes let us speak to ghosts if there are any around. Sometimes we'll get small sounds, and sometimes we hear a voice. I have to warn you, it can be disappointing when it isn't as loud or clear as you'd expect. But this should be the perfect room to get a response."

After turning the device on and adjusting the dial until I get a nice, static channel, I pause. In the van, Seth has the other paired box that can emit audio to this one. He's waiting on my cue. Danny moves in closer until I raise the box in my hand. Then, as loud as I can muster, I say, "Is there anyone else in the room with us?"

Silence. Perfect. It builds tension. I wait another solid minute. I usually would use the chat as a gauge for the right timing, but I'll have to take a guess now. I take a breath, then say, "If someone is here, tell me your name."

I lift a finger off of the box. Okay, Seth. Hit me.

Nothing happens. Okay, not perfect. I tap my foot. Come on, Seth! Another thirty seconds pass, and still nothing. I begin to open my mouth when the static disperses and a voice comes out.

"Not...your...home..."

I gasp and drop the box. As it hits the floor, it emits a hissing sound I've never heard before. But that isn't what makes my head swirl — as I stare at the box on the floor, my hand burns fire red. If I were to look down, I'd expect to see a cut or a burn or something because when the voice came out of the box, I felt a sharp, burning pain in my palm.

"Claire!" Seth shouts in my ear so loudly, there's feedback. I wince. "Claire! I can't see the feed! What's happening?"

I look up. Danny isn't watching me through the display like I thought he would. Instead, his eyes are glued to the spirit box, now silent on the floor. When I whisper his name, he lifts his head, and there's a look I don't like on his face. He looks scared. "You still can't see us?" I ask Seth, my heart pounding.

"No! Nothing! The feed is black! The helmet cams, Danny's... it's all dark!"

I hear something so quiet it felt like a tickle in my ear. But it gets louder, and I realize it sounds like laughter. The laughter. It ripples across the ballroom. It causes my jaw to go slack and my mouth numb. Before I can see where it's coming from, I hear the thumping of feet on the linoleum flooring. It moves fast. Fast across the room. Toward Georgia.

"Georgia!" Danny calls out as I whip my head in her direction.

Her gaze snaps to Danny's, and she has a surprised, startled look on her face. It's replaced by fear when something rushes at her.

Georgia braces herself, and I feel my legs go stiff. I don't have time to process any of it. All I do is watch as Georgia collapses to the floor. She slams against the wall and falls down. At first, she doesn't move. I watch her motionless as my heart beats in my ear. As I begin to take a step, she starts screaming.

The sound that leaves her mouth is one I've never heard before. The only thing that comes to mind that remotely fits is a banshee; Georgia screams as if she's seen death.

Whatever trance I was in breaks when I hear the camera Danny was holding fall to the floor. Plastic shatters. He goes flying across the room toward Georgia. His ghostly figure in the night vision looks like it's on fire from how fast he runs.

"Turn it off!" He shouts, his voice deep and demanding. It sends a shockwave through me. "Cut the goddamn feed, Seth! Cut everything!"

"What?" I say breathlessly. "Danny?" I take a step, my heart sinking when I wonder for a second if this wasn't staged. That Georgia didn't stage this. "Georgia?"

"Stop the stream!" He yells over Georgia's deep, harrowing sobs. "Cut goddamnit!"

When the red lights turn off, the night vision is cut, leaving me in the pitch-black ballroom. I stand there in the dark listening to Georgia's endless cries until the headlights from the van fill the room.

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