Chapter 1
University of East Washington,
9:00pm
Mary hugged her pillow and rolled to her right. She saw her roommate Young Hee working hard on her laptop at the desk.
“Any luck?” she asked Young Hee.
“Almost done. Old man Winston is sure making us work hard. There isn’t exactly an ‘abandoned buildings dot com’, ya know?” responded Young Hee.
“You’ve been at it for an hour!” said Mary with a slight moan in her voice. “You almost never work this long on anything.”
“It’s not my fault I was born a genius.”
Mary threw the pillow at her. “Oh please! You got a 1100 on your SAT! Some genius you turned out to be.” The pillow bounced off Young Hee’s back and hit the sleeping cat. The cat jumped up and ran behind the mini-fridge.
“I’m an idiot savant. I suck at everything except filmmaking.”
“You can’t even make Shin Ramyeon!”
Young Hee turned around in her office chair. “The instructions were bad in English and Korean! I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s like they hired a kindergartner to write the instructions!”
“It’s noodles! Hot water, bowl, add, mix, eat!”
“Says the chef! The last time you cooked, the sprinklers came on and soaked the stove!”
“Stupid thing is too sensitive! Steak is supposed to be blackened!”
There was a knock at the door. Mary got up, shook her red hair into a better position and opened the door. It was Jason, their teammate in Film Practice 201.
“Evenin’, Ms. Kent,” said Jason in a fake Texas accent.
“Howdy, Mr. Cleaver. Here to cut something up?” teased Mary.
Young Hee spun her chair to the right and said, “Just in time, Jason. I’ve finally found three locations for us to scout.”
“Awesome, blossom,” said Jason as he walked into their dorm room. “Give me the TLDR.”
“Location 1 is a burnt-down school here in town on East Garden,” explained Young Hee as she pointed to it on the digital map. “It has clear ownership and it may still have functional outlets.”
“Location 2?” impatiently asked Mary.
“Location 2 is a old factory in Brewster, along the Columbia River. I think we can get the owner to meet us there. Or at the very least, some sort of representative.”
“What about Location 3?”
“I think old man Winston will like Location 3,” said Young Hee. “It’s an abandoned cult building in the mountains west of Boyd. Very large, no people within 10 miles.”
“He told us we should seek owner permission before we start busting around other people’s property,” said Jason as he took off his Mariners baseball cap.
“True, but the location would be perfect for a film crew. There won’t be any prying eyes.”
“No power, or water either,” noted Mary as she saw a picture of the building. It looked like someone poured algae all over a 1960s era Soviet block office building.
“Hey, that helps with the creepiness of the place,” said Young Hee.
“True. He did say to find someplace creepy,” mentioned Jason. “What does Mack 10 think?”
“Mack 10? That skeevy guy?” slightly whined Mary.
“He’s our partner, whether you like him or not,” noted Jason.
Mary stuck out her tongue. “He looks at me funny.”
“He looks at every girl funny. But, he’s on our team,” said Young Hee. “He should be done now. I’ll video call him on Skype.” She took the tape off her laptop camera and started the call. Mack answered after a few rings.
“You off work now?” asked Young Hee.
“Yeah. Just finished helping Versatial with a music video,” said Mack Bonds. “He’s a pretty slick rapper.” (author’s note: No he’s not. He sucks).
“We got three places to check out,” explained Jason. “One is up the road from you, and two are out of town.”
“We want to check them out tomorrow,” said Young Hee.
“Shit. I gotta work until 5pm.”
“Can you join us in Boyd for location 3?” asked Mary.
“Boyd...where’s that?”
“Hour north of here.”
“Aight. Yeah I can be there,”
“It’ll take us that long to get out there from Brewster. We’ll have to do some night filming at Location 3,” said Young Hee.
“Aight. I’ll bring the lamps.”
“It’s gonna be a late night. I’m thinking we need to bring camping gear and sleeping bags,” suggested Mary. “Location 3 is way out in the woods.”
“It’s a former cult building,” said Jason. Mack scratched his head.
“Cult building!!! You wanna get us killed?!” he said in a voice that came close to a high-pitched scream.
“Eh...it’s fine. They’re gone. If they’re there, we’ll leave. No problemo.”
Mary leaned in front of the camera. “Don’t tell me you’re scared, son,” she teased him.
“Haha...scared...haha…” Mack wiped his forehead. “This is like the start of every horror movie ever. I’m telling you now, I ain’t dying first.”
“It’ll be fine,” dismissively explained Jason. “I used to go camping all the time when I was on fire watch.”
“Aight. See you in Boyd at 5,” said Mack as he hung up the phone.
