Chapter 2

 A year or so back, Daryl Walker found himself to be something of a paranormal researcher seemingly overnight. 

Sure, he had harbered an interest in the paranormal and the strange for years before hearing unusual thumps of unexplained origin in an old building, but catching them on film sent his videos from a couple of nighttime haunting investigations to one of the up and coming ghost hunters online.

Not too long ago he received an email from an interested investigator (it felt strange calling her that, once he had started correspondence) with a podcast reaching out about a collaboration.

That had been months before, and now they had set up a meeting in a town a little outside of Denver.

She had said she was from further east and had planned a roadtrip around a loop where there was a chance to look at a number of local legends, cryptids, and sites where there were reports of hauntings and mysterious lights in the sky.

They had become friends over Skype from afar, but he couldn’t help the anticipation that crept through him at the idea of finally meeting.

He heard his phone buzz in the other room, accompanied by the soft ding of a notification from his laptop.

Likely from her, in fact. 

She had messaged him, letting him know she was travelling through Kansas now and would be there the following day.

She shared a location she had planned to go to and do nighttime photography and take a look at, and despite his insistence to not go alone, it seemed that she had.

Luckily, it had turned out alright, but she text she sent piqued his interest when she said

“There was something that happened that was weird I do want to tell you more about.”

He looked at the message again, adjusting his glasses and looking back to the bag on his chair, returning to packing a bag of equipment for their trip.

Even if it turned out to be nothing, the locations would allow for some dark sky astrophotography and an excuse to break out the night vision camera for ghost or cryptid hunting, this time with a partner to break up the usual in his videos.

Looking at the clock, Daryl checked the time and decided he should start to call it a night early after a few finishing touches on his most recent video. 

He had a bit of anticipation, but generally was excited to meet her in person. 

His other bag was packed, ready to camp and see what else they might find.

—-

Going west from the east she could see the distant sprawl of the mountain ridges as she left Kansas and traveled further into Colorado. 

                  Soon she would be meeting her travel partner for the next few weeks if things went according to plan.

                  That would be important for safety’s sake.

                  She thought back to the encounter with the unusual man in the dark.

                  “I—actually I have a card for it.”

Why share a business card with a stranger in the dark? Bad idea.

She quietly internally berated herself.

                  She was still taking a chance with Daryl, but the conversations for nearly half the year still were much better than showing up at those places alone.

                  They were soon going further south and then west, planning to go back north again, and then loop around either back to the starting point, or fly back out from California.

                  Since she was a bit less than an hour out from meeting up with him, the background anticipation was starting to build a bit in the back of her stomach.

                  —

                  Not too long later, she found herself pulling up to the front of the hotel for the night. Nicer than some nights to come, and a good place to regroup and get her berrings.

She sent a text to Daryl and grabbed her bags to head upstairs.

                  Minutes later, as the elevator doors opened to reveal the lobby. 

The air was warmer than the crisp outdoor air and the parking area and she half-sighed. She went to the front desk and got her room key with few words spoken.

“Here you are, enjoy your stay.”

Rounding the corner of a tan pillar, she caught a glimpse of a man looking down at his phone with a beanie on and glasses. She opened her mouth for a second, unsure, but he looked familiar.

“Daryl?”

She called out.

His head rose in surprise at hearing his name and he blinked for a second before what seemed to be recognition flashed across his eyes.

“Oh, hey! –”

He smiled and stepped forward. Before she knew it, he embraced her in a quick hug. Just as quickly, he let go of the hug but left his hands on either side of her shoulders for a moment before falling back to his side.

“You made it! I hoped you wouldn’t bail on me last minute!”

She smiled and let out a small laugh.

“Well, no, definitely not.”

She quickly added

“Why don’t I set my bags down and we can regroup and grab some dinner?”

He looked down at the bags in her hand and nodded in agreement.

“I’ll grab one of those.”

“Thanks—” she said quickly,

letting him grab the bag and glanced down at the room key to check the number.

“Only a few stories up.”

He nodded and they walked towards the elevators.

 —–

After dropping her bags off at the hotel room, Daryl suggested a casual pub that was walking distance from the hotel.

“So, how was the drive? Long?”

She laughed.

“I actually backtracked a bit” she shrugged. “There were a few points of interest I wanted to check out further in the plains.”

“Oh, great! Find anything?”

She laughed again, a bit nervously.

“Ah, yeah actually sort of. I’ll tell you about it more in a second, but have you found anything specific you wanted to add to our route? I wanted to make sure it got added on to the drive route.”

“Right to the point, okay.” He laughed.

“But yes, there are a few sites with what would be considered either sightings, strange lights, or at least made up stories that would be cool to show up and make some commentary about.”

He reached for his bag, unzipping it and looking through it a moment before pulling out a folder.

“A few places in New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada.”

“Awesome! That’s a good start. I have a few places already mapped out but it should be fairly easy to add those if they aren’t too far of detours. Or if you don’t mind the extra drive.”

She laughed. 

There were already going to be a few places that took a few hours to get to.

“Valley of Fire is one place that would be great for some astrophotography, so during the camp there it should also be a good place to light a fire and go over some details of other places.”

“Definitely.”

He laughed with a widening smile.

“This is actually pretty crazy. I haven’t had the chance to go on a more in depth at most of the site on the list. That’ll be almost a year’s worth of content.”

She smiled, flipping open the file.

“Yeah! And it should be a lot less daunting than going alone. Also you never know if someone might be out there too. I accidentally ran into that.”

She admitted.

He folded his arms and raised a brow behind his black rimmed glasses.

“Really? Was it scary?”

She let out a short nervous laugh.

“Uh, yeah. I woudn’t suggest that,” she shook her head slightly.

“Actually on the way here. That’s what I wanted to tell you about too—”

She looked down at the folder then back up at him.

“When I was trying to get some night shots of abandoned place photography of this group of buildings, I heard this noise and suddenly this guy shows up out of nowhere and I froze up for a second.”

He paused, looking concerned.

“Umm…I’m glad you’re alright, that’s scary.”

“Yeah….so he shows up out of nowhere, asks why I’m there, and I say a few words to him for a second before a loud noise behind him happened and I bolted back to the car when he was looking away. And as I got in the car to drive away, I only just then noticed what looked like a van further back in the gravel lot. It gave me a bit of a scare, especially since there were no visible lights on, and the site was fairly out side of the city.”

“See, this is why you shouldn’t go alone.”

She sighed, shaking her head.

“I know, I know. It was just….the first time that had happened. Also, weird thing.” 

She paused, reaching down for her bag and grabbing her camera.

“This guy was well dressed, like almost in a suit.”

“Oh, that’s weird. My guess is the mob. Probably the mob. You should be careful. Are you on some kind of hit list now?”

“I hope not!”

She laughed nervously, him joining in.

“Anyways. We do need to be careful at a lot of these places.”

“Definitely.”

“I did get some pictures though.”

((She added, flicking on her camera and pressing a button to look through the images. She clicked through a few of them until she caught something on the most recent image.

It was a blurry half-image of the man who appeared suddenly from the dark, just the edge of his coat, his trousers and shoes, but an image none the less.

“Weird.”))

“The abandoned place was definitely spooky. Possibly a mobster hangout place.”

She laughed despite herself.

She turned the camera around to him and showed the blurry half-image.

“Not the best picture, but you can see his pants leg and shoes, and part of his hand.”

Daryl squinted, leaning forward to take a look.

“Yeah, crazy. That could have been scary.”

She shrugged, trying to play it off.

“Eh, startled me a bit, but I ran out of their pretty fast.”

Daryl bristled slightly, shifting in his seat while he adjusted his glasses.

“–But anyways, we should take it easy tonight, leave early tomorrow morning?”

She added.

He nodded, his lips quirking up into a smile that made her smile grow slightly.

“As long as you’re not dragging me into any shady mobster business.”

“I’ll try not to.”

She added with a laugh.