JD took the laptop from the bed and set it up on the desk against the wall next to the wi-fi hook up. He went back to his closet and fished out the power supply, the camera receiver units the device for connecting to the laptop. He called up the program to receive the camera signals, then clicked several commands in the program until the camera pictures displayed. The pictures were grainy, laced over with snow like an old television without cable. It wasn’t as sharp as if they were in a single room or closer proximity, but the image was distinguishable. He frowned and sighed.

Wendy heard the tone. “What? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I just … well, the camera’s picture isn’t as clear as I’d hoped.”

“Will you be recording it?”

“As much as I can. I have to go back to each of them and put the power supplies in place. I don’t want the batteries to die before we find anything meaningful.”

“Dude, ‘s gonna be another point o’ failure.”

“I know, but I … hey, how’d you know about points of failure?”

Dillon chuckled and shook his head. “Why, JD? Why ya gotta hurt me, man? I gotta brain.”

“Something certainly requires huge volumes of food to sustain itself. I guess it could be a brain, but …”

“See? Yer an ass, dude. A big fat hairy pimply ol’ ass. Like on the fat kid in grammar school gym class.”

“Thanks. Charming image.”

“Hey, my pleasure, m’man. I aim t’please.”

“So we go back and connect the power supplies, no biggie,” Wendy said. “How long do we have?”

“A few hours before the batteries die. Maybe three or four.”

“Oh, plenty of time. Now, let’s talk about what we know and what we’re going to do.”

“A’ight, so what we know is, Feebs almost got dead. We know she’s preggers, too, an’ her an’ her ol’ man’s in a hurry t’get all squared away on this thing.”

“Right, and we know they think someone’s trying to kill them.”

“How do we know that? Have they said that?”

“Well, duh, JD — they told us they believe the curse story has something to do with it.”

JD nodded. “I guess so. Okay, so they think someone’s trying to kill them. I suspect someone’s trying to scare them and extort them.”

“Still??” Dillon threw his hands up and they fell on his thighs with a slap.

“Yes, still. Do you have a better idea?”

“How ’bout lookin’ inta this ghost thing, dude? I mean, ain’t that why we’re here an’ all that crap?”

“We also know the Kileys have a family legend that goes back generations about a witch and a curse, JD.”

“Yeah, but we — ”

“And we know a psychic contacted Bea Jenkins and got your phone number from her.”

“Well, that’s a little harder to — ”

“And we know the Kiley’s son was murdered. The police say it was an accident, but they don’t buy it. Oh, and let’s not forget the private eye they hired to look into his death — he turned up dead too.”

“That was a heart attack.”

“Yeah, maybe. But it’s still suspicious and weird.”

“Dude, it so is suspicious and weird. Like you.”

“True, but we’re taking their word for all of this. And I’m not weird. You’re weird, anaconda-boy.”

“Dude, where else we gonna get the 4-1-1? They hired you an’ crap.”

“I know, but we’re assuming everything they’ve told us is true.”

Wendy fell back on the bed again. “Ughh!! You’re driving me crazy, Jaded! Why would they lie about their son dying? What could they possibly gain from that?”

“I’m not saying they lied about their son dying, I’m just saying we have no objective source of information. We haven’t corroborated anything they’ve said with another source. We’ve been so taken with them we’ve not done any fact-checking on their story.”

“How we gonna do that, dude?”

“We can either talk to the police, talk to the witnesses, or talk to the psychic. I can’t think of anything else that would verify their stories.”

“All right, then, let’s do those things. Let’s start talking to people.”

“Okay, that’s fine. But we need to do a couple of other things, too. I want to do a sweep of the paths around the rooms where the cameras are. I’d like to identify any anomalous electromagnetic fields, just to be sure we’re not going to have further problems wit
h the cameras.”

“You wanna play with yer tweety crap inna middle o’ all this crap goin’ down an’ crap? Crap.”

“I just want to make sure we’re able to do our jobs, Dillon. All we have to do is walk around and make note of any strange readings — mostly spikes.”

“Whatevs. Let’s jus’ get it over with an’ shit.”

JD clattered in the duffel bag a few moments. He came back with two meters, each the size of a pocket calculators. The black plastic casings had a large digital readout in them. He turned on the first one, pressed a button on the face below the readout, then handed it to Dillon.

“Okay, this one’s working. The number on the screen will change, but if it changes a lot, you need to mark down where you were exactly. We’ll meet back here and I’ll verify your readings with my meter, and vice versa. Get it?”

“Yeh, yeh, whatever.”

“No, I need you to understand this, Dill. This is critical.”

“Dude, I said I get it. You’re th’ only one thinks I’m dumb, dildo.”

“I’m not saying you’re dumb, I’m just asking if you …”

“Yes, James Devereaux, I understand the process. I proceed to pace the hallways with meter in hand. When the meter spikes I document the location and time of the spike and you will later verify the reading after our rendezvous. Okay? Jeez, dickhead.”

Wendy laughed furiously, falling back onto the bed with her hand over her mouth. Tears streamed from her eyes.

JD blinked. “Uh … yes. Yes, that’s … that’s right.”