Shakin All Over

“Okay, okay, I give up! We’ll stop somewhere to get food.” Georgie had no chance against two hungry, complaining girls who wouldn’t stop talking about food until they would reach North Carolina. She knew they were kind of slow since they had spent the night in a hotel and it had taken a long time to get Elenna out of bed early in the morning, but Georgie couldn’t let them starve just because she wanted to get to their destination as soon as possible.
Morrigan suggested something fancy, and Georgie was the first one to agree, however, the only ‘restaurants’ they passed were little shacks in the middle of nowhere that looked like bikers would stop there, and Georgie would rather wear Wal-Mart clothes than having to sit among a group of sleazy bikers while eating unhealthy food.

“Dude, that’s the third restaurant you passed!”, Elenna grumbled. “I’m freaking hungry!”

“I don’t know what you understand by ‘restaurant’, but that thing that looks like an evil witch uses to hide little kids and perform rituals is not something I want to set a foot in.”

Elenna and Morrigan both sighed. “But we’re hungry…”

“Can we just stop at the next restaurant, no matter how it looks like?”, Morrigan asked. “Please.”

“Wendy’s!”, Elenna yelled when they passed an advertisement. “There’s a Wendy’s in 2 miles, let’s stop there.”

“But-“

“What? I highly doubt Wendy’s is a place where an evil witch hides little kids and performs rituals.”

Georgie rolled her eyes. “Whatever!”

Callum felt himself start to relax as he took the first sip of his drink. The fist hurdle was over and somehow he hadn't been spotted as a fraud. How could Rome be so laid back?

Callum glanced at Rome. He was staring at something behind the bar. Callum looked but saw nothing.

"What is it?" he said quietly.

Rome shook his head, for a moment seeming unsure. But he said, "It's nothing."

Callum didn't press it any further. He changed the topic. "So we're going to mingle. Where do we start?"

Rome grinned. "First of all, you can stop worrying. You're Scottish and so in the eyes of pretty much everyone in the room you can do nothing wrong."

Callum laughed. "I can't help it. I've never done anything like this before. Archaeology doesn't really involve that many people skills..."

"Mingle? Oh, ah...you mingle." Rome was staring off into space again. But this time, he had his eyes on a prize.

And her twin sister.

"Here's the room key," Rome said, handing the key card off to Callum.

"What are you doing? I thought we were supposed to be gathering information, here?"

Rome shrugged. "That was just extra credit. You can if you want to. I'll be back in the morning. Stay out of trouble, and don't do anything I wouldn't do..."

Lenna was sitting in the backseat, playing with her phone thinking about a reason to call him but nothing really good came to her mind. Well nothing that didn’t make Georgie and Morrigan laugh. So all she did was sent Callum a text message.

How are you doing? Hope you are having fun with Rome. We are still on the road, should arrive around 1.cu soon Lenna

Georgie kept watching Lenna in the rear-view mirror, smiling at herself. Georgie nearly lost it and laughed out loud very unlady-like when Lenna’s phone vibrated and she almost jumped out of the car.

I’m okay. Rome went with some girls and left me alone. Drive safe.

Lenna didn’t know what to answer him, but she kept reading his text message again and again. The longer Georgie had to drive the more grumpy she got, in the end neither Morrigan nor Lenna said another word, complained about the music, or that Lenna actually was hungry again.

“Out! I need sleep.” Lenna giggled Georgie could be so funny.

They went to the reception and got their room key. Georgie didn’t say a lot more and went to bed or more started her going to bed washing face routine which took ages. Lenna sneaked out of the room and send to Rome and Callum the same text. We finally arrived. Just checked in. I’m on my way to find some food. Two days with G starved me. Start working in the morning.

Lenna found some fries for herself and sat down on a bench to watch the stars. She sighed normally around this time of the year she would never stop grinning, carols would play in the background, and she would have Christmas cookies for lunch, the real good ones self baked German cookies. She suddenly had to giggle.

In less than three weeks I’m not a teenager anymore.

It hadn’t been a fun drive.

Trying to cover the gaps in his knowledge if he wanted to pass as a professor Richard had bought a history cd, and had been playing it non-stop on the journey. And during the stops he’d been cramming all the history about the area he could. Now he’d arrived, he was clear on one thing.

There was no way he could pass himself off as a history professor. Ok, maybe to the layman, but not to anyone who knew what they were taking about. And there were a lot of them at Roanoke Island. So a new plan, a medical professor with an interest in history. It would cover the gaps nicely. And it wasn’t as if he’d need to use his medical knowledge where they were going.

In the hotel Richard shrugged off the tweed jacket. Rome’s idea, it helped the image but it really wasn’t comfortable. At least he’d put his foot down over the suggestion of a pipe. Looking over the notes again, he couldn’t find anything conclusive about what they could be dealing with. Yes the old colony had disappeared, but that could mean anything, most likely that they had moved to a different location. The only odd thing was the carved word ‘Croatoan’, but that could mean anything. He pulled out his phone and texted the others.

arrived and bored hows everyone else doing

Rome let himself in to the room he had booked for him and Callum quietly, as it was still seven in the morning, but he found his companion already awake.

"Oh! Morning!" he greeted cheerfully. "Coffee?"

"Er, thank you," Callum said. "How...ah, was last night?" he seemed to regret the question as soon as he opened his mouth, and blushed accordingly, so Rome spared him the details.

"Her name was Monique, and her sister's name was Megan. Maybe it was the other way around, though, I'm not sure. Anyway, they left this morning, and I've conveniently lost their numbers already, but the Starbucks barista's name is Robin and she gets off at 3:00 today."

"Have you even slept?"

"That's a negatory, Sunshine. Just got a text from Richard, he was the last one to arrive this morning. So let's hit the beat, or whatever being a reporter is called, and hop on over to the park. First ferry leaves in half an hour."

As he waited for Callum to finish getting dressed he sent a message to Richard and to Elenna:

We'll be on the island by 10. Rendezvous at lunchtime after we've seen the sights. HH

After the girls had breakfast Elenna received a message from Rome.

“We’re going to meet the others at noon on the island”, she said, turning around to Georgie who studied the newspaper.

“Should we get to the island and look around a bit?”, Morrigan asked.

“Yeah, sounds like a plan.” Elenna nodded. “Georgie?”

She didn’t react.

“Hey, G, there’s a woman who’s wearing an orange leggings!”

“Hm?” Georgie finally looked up. “What?”

“Just joking. I needed to get your attention somehow.” Elenna grinned. “You seemed a little absent. Are you all okay?”

Georgie nodded. “Yes, I’m fine.” She closed the newspaper and got up. She didn’t want to admit it but since they arrived in North Carolina she felt weird, as if there was something wrong. Well, there obviously was something wrong with this whole area and they needed to find out what it was exactly, but Georgie couldn’t get rid of this strange feeling.

After the girls arrived on the island they looked around and noticed nothing unusual so far.
Well, Georgie noticed something that only she could notice from a huge distance, and that was bad fashion.

“Oh God, there’s actually someone in a tweed jacket. That should be illegal…”

Elenna rolled her eyes. “Come on, it’s not that…is that Richard?”

“What?”

“The guy in the tweed jacket.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Lenna. There’s no way that…oh my God, it is Richard.”

“Hey, over here!” Elenna waved at him. When he noticed the girls he walked over to them, but he had no chance to say anything because Georgie already started tugging his sleeve.

“What is this?”

“Ahem…a jacket.”

“Don’t tell me you had this in your wardrobe the entire time.”

“Well, Rome suggested-“

“Aha, Rome! Of course…” She sighed and let go off his sleeve. “You look so…so…British.”

“I have to look like a historian, so….”

“Well, mission accomplished. You look like a British historian with three PhDs and a pipe collection”, Georgie said, smiling briefly before she turned to the girls.

“Did you see Rome and Callum yet?”, Elenna asked.

“No, not yet”, Richard replied. “We still have time until we meet them.”

“Did you notice anything strange so far?”

“No, I just started looking around.”

“Well…” Elenna looked at Georgie and Morrigan. “I guess it’s time to snoop around for a bit. And remember, we’re supposed to be sorority girls.”

Georgie chuckled. “With Richard we look like a bunch of sorority girls who brought their History professor along. That’s not weird at all.”

“Actually...” Lenna looked Richard up and down, “He wouldn’t be a bad looking professor.” Lenna giggled. She couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary, well a bunch of people in costumes but that was expect.

“You know this place could actually be fun if we didn’t have to work. One day we should take a holiday, somewhere like this.”

Lenna turned around and watch a group of kids go in the opposite direction of them and behind the group was a…

Ghost?

She blinked and it was gone.

I can’t think a ghost can cause all this trouble.

"Ahh, Mr. Stevens, pleased to meet you. My name is Kent, I'm with the N-C Gazetteer, we'd like to run an article about your lovely little establishment here and I was wondering if I could ask you some questions..."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Stevens, I told them to wait outside, but they--"

"I don't have time for this, young man!" the owner of the park pushed past.

"Is your park normally this empty during Christmastime?"

The man looked at him, shocked and enraged. "No!"

"What do you believe accounts for--"

"Have you even seen the news, boy?"

Rome feigned retard-shock. "Um. Huh?"

"We've been havin' our share of problems, here, and I don't have a comment for the press, especially when they send half-assed morons on their first assignment!"

He pushed past and went out the door. The secretary blinked at him. At them. Callum was there, backing him up, though he looked almost as bewildered as the secretary. "I think he likes me," Rome grinned, tipped his hat at the secretary (he had gotten a fedora just for the occasion of impersonating the press, and was rather proud of it), and quickly followed the man outside.

"Really?" Rome asked, dogging the man's heels quite animatedly. "What kind of problems would those be?" He was headed towards the entrance, and in the corner of his eye Rome caught sight of the girls and Richard, who were doing a poor job of pretending to not know each other. And Richard in a tweed jacket was hilarious.

The man wheeled around and glared at Rome. It looked like Rome's grand plan of getting the man to spout some crucial information in his rage was probably going to backfire in the form of Rome getting punched in the face.

"I'm only gonna tell you this once, boy. Get off my island!"

The others had watched Callum, Rome and the other guy from a safe distance, but when the guy started yelling at Rome it was time to do something. There was an undeniable tension between the man and Rome, and since Georgie knew how quick-tempered Rome could get when someone pissed him off, she quickly grabbed his arm and held him back.

“We can’t afford to act unprofessional right now”, she hissed warningly.

The park owner scrutinized the group hostilely. Georgie felt a shiver running down her spine. There was something wrong with that guy, and it wasn’t the fact that he was overly rude. There was something almost inhuman about him…
Before she could say something he turned around and walked away quickly, almost running.

“Rome, I think there’s something wrong with that guy…”

“Well, yeah, obviously! What a douchebag, I should have-“

“No, that’s not what I meant.” Georgie didn’t know how she could explain it, especially since she didn’t want to tell anyone about the fact that she was able to perceive the emotions of others. At least she thought she might have the ability to… But that sounded crazy, so she kept it to herself.
She was just about to say that they should follow the park owner when they heard a gunshot not far away.

Lenna stepped closer to Georgie when she heard the gunshot. She looked around to find out where someone was shooting. She wasn’t sure why but Georgie wasn’t complaining when Lenna took her hand, nearly as if she knew that Lenna was scared.

“Georgie I think I saw a ghost a few moments ago.” As weird as it sounds it calmed her down to talk about things she could control like ghosts. Lenna felt weird, it looked more and more as their entire gig was just weird. She wondered if the park itself what the cursed object. But they couldn’t burn down the entire park, or could they?

The gunshot spooked him, and Rome's head snapped around.

But there were no forthcoming screams or panicking, and Rome narrowed his eyes until they found--

A shooting range, with ducks. Jesus Christ.

"False alarm," he breathed. God, he was on edge. This whole place just gave him the creeps. It was like it was alive, and angry.

He turned back to his girls, now that the Park Owner had escaped him. "Let me get this straight: You're seeing things?" he asked Elenna, "and you got The Shining?" he asked Georgie. He tried to sound light, even though this was far too serious than he wanted to consider, and he chuckled nervously and lowered his voice:

"Come on, girls, seriously? That's my angle you're working."

Lenna let go of Georgie’s hand and tried to overplay how uncomfortable she had felt.

“Sometimes you are such a jerk Rome. I’m not seeing things, I’m seeing ghosts. This is no hunt we had before.”

Lenna looked around expecting to see more ghosts or people going crazy. She was curious but also nervous. What if there was someone around shooting. “We are not more in danger than we are on other hunts are we?”

Georgie looked worried at Elenna who claimed to have seen a ghost. This place was more messed up than she thought it was.

“Lenna”, Georgie turned to her friend. “Can you recall how the ghost looked like?”

“Well, I only saw it for a second, it was kind of hard to really see because-“ She paused as they heard loud voices not too far way.

“What’s going on?”,Morrigan asked.

“No idea”, Rome mumbled. “Let’s find out.”

They followed the voices and spotted the park owner yelling at someone who appeared to be the sheriff.

“We can’t keep this park open anymore, we have to shut it down, Mr. Stevens”, the sheriff said. He only seemed to agitate the already angry park owner.

“Nobody is shutting down this park!”, Mr. Stevens yelled, then he pulled something out from under his coat. “Over my dead body…”

“A ghost hunt? Excellent!” Richard exclaimed before he could really help himself. The other’s looked at him with surprise.

“Erm, it’s just that I’ve had rather a lot of experience with ghosts. Keep bumping into them. Not that you can bump into a ghost!” At this point, Richard was thankful, the group became more interested in the voices in the distance. He muttered under his breath, hoping he hadn’t given the game away.

"Lenna," Morrigan prodded. "If you think you saw something, this could be important." Georgie was right; people were definitely acting strangely. People were strange by nature, but she got a feeling that this wasn't just normal human conversation. "What did the ghost look like?"

The man continued yelling. Richard continued muttering to himself. Morrigan felt herself reach instinctively into her pocket for the items inside. The team continued to inch toward the altercation between the man and the sheriff, not sure what to expect, but knowing that if anything was wrong about this place, they'd figure it out through its residents.

Rome had ignored the conversation for the past few seconds, looking over the heads of the girls and past Richard's head.

"Mr. Stevens, you need to remain calm!" the Sheriff was saying, squaring off, as the Park Owner began to look really belligerent. Rome actually regretted antagonizing him.

It didn't matter that Lenna was seeing things (especially considering he had seen them, too). It didn't matter that Richard was happy about hunting ghosts. He had his right to be weird just like everyone else.

But Rome was pushing past them, because the fight was starting now.

But just before he had gotten over to the actual violence, Rome stopped short, his face twisted in disgust and horror. He had broken up fights before, brawls, punching-wrestling matches between amateur old men who were more interested in rolling around in the dirt than hurting each other.

This was not that, and Rome stood for a moment in shock, just watching, like it was a train wreck, where he was unable to do anything but unable to look away.

He stopped because the Park Owner had pulled the Sheriff's ear off and was clawing open his chest.

“Oh God, I’m not seeing this!” Georgie closed her eyes, hoping she was imagining that scene in front of her.

“Gross!”, she heard Elenna’s mumbling next to her.

“Okay…I think we’re dealing with something nasty here. That guy is not human!” Rome looked at the others. “Get your guns out.”

“Is he possessed?”, Morrigan asked.

“I don’t know…” Elenna frowned. “But Rome’s right, he’s definitely not human.”

Suddenly the park owner looked up, blood smeared across his face. He got up and ran towards them. Rome shot in his direction and the bullet hit his shoulder, but he kept on running, right towards Georgie who quickly held up her gun and shot as well. The man was surprisingly persistent, and despite being shot two times still managed to scratch her arm before he got shot in the back by Rome and collapsed. Georgie quickly jumped two steps back.

“What the hell was that?” Rome scrutinized the dead park owner warily, then looked at Georgie. “Are you okay?”

She nodded. “Just a little scratch.”

The Sheriff staggered to his feet. God, he looked awful, and Rome was surprised at how he was holding it together.

"We are evacuating this establishment. Who's in charge here now?" He looked around, and just as Rome was about to duck out, the Sheriff pointed at him. "You. I'll need to ask you and your girlfriend there some questions, if you don't mind."

Rome tensed, but he smiled stupidly and nodded.

A preppy-looking blonde young woman bounced forward. "Sheriff, my name is Maria Jones and I'm taking charge of this situation as the Park Health and Safety Administrator. I have already called in a helicopter evacuation for yourself and anyone else injured, and have given the order to evacuate the island."

Right on time, a loud announcement was made over some old fashioned PA system.

"Ladies and Gentleman, the Park is now closing. Please make your way to the ferry. Ladies and Gentleman, the Park is now closing. Please make your way to the ferry."

"See?" While hot, this chick was waaaaay too bubbly. It made Rome nervous. "If you step this way, Sheriff, we have first aid supplies in the office." Suddenly, she turned on Rome and Georgie (the others had wisely backed off a bit). "Are you hurt?" she asked Georgie.

"Yes," Rome said, just as Georgie replied, "No."

They looked at each other.

"No," Rome corrected, just as Georgie said, "Yes."

Georgie sighed heavily. "It's just a scratch, I'm fine."

"Come on into the office, I insist. There will be a second ferry coming back for us in an hour."

Rome nodded dumbly, and he and Georgie followed the limping Sheriff and the bouncing Health and Safety Officer into one of the gray buildings hiding behind the make-believe-history-land. The others followed at a distance.

While Rome disliked law enforcement figures of all kinds, at least this presented an opportunity to get some answers, maybe.

"What does 'Croatoan' mean?" Rome asked, cocking his head at some fresh-looking graffiti on the wooden door.

The smile died on the perky blonde's face for the first time. "Oh, um, we don't like to talk about that. This is a family establishment."

Callum was still shocked at how quickly the situation had escalated. And now the park owner was lying dead in the street. It was a few moments before he could do anything. He hadn't realised how serious this stuff could get. But then he probably didn't remember half of what had happened to him while he was under the curse of that sword.

Callum shook his head and drew his eyes away from the dead body. Rome and Georgie had gone with the Sheriff and the Health and Safety woman, leaving Callum with Lenna, Richard and Morrigan in the street.

He raised his eyebrows at them all, surprised at their relatively calm composures when his head felt like it was spinning all over the place.

"You guys make it seem like this is an everyday occurrence," he said, slightly sarcastically.

He was met was a sort of guilty silence that suggested his remark was more true than he would have liked.

Lenna felt nervous she didn’t like that Rome and Georgie got separated from them.

“This is not our normal hunt, we have to have to see that we are prepared. Let’s see if we find as much salt as possible so we are safe until we take the ferry back to the mainland. And just to make one thing clear, those people are not possessed they don’t show the typical demon possessed symptoms.”

Lenna took a pen out of her bag and drew on her right wrist the symbol for fire and for earth.

“We should see if we find Rome and Georgie.”

Suddenly Lenna realized that she was pretty much walking with strangers around. She knew Callum and Richard since a week and Morrigan maybe longer but not really that long. At least Morrigan knew that Lenna was a little crazy but not dangerous.

While that perky, annoyingly happy woman applied a bandage to the wound, Georgie’s glance wandered around the room to find something unusual, but all she saw were some dull pictures of the island and some black and white photographs. She felt kind of stupid, like a little girl sitting at the doctor’s. The only thing missing was her daddy holding her hand, or in this case, Rome. And she really didn’t need that! Fortunately Rome was busy questioning the sheriff. He tried not to look too suspicious, but Georgie could tell that he had a hard time hiding his curiosity.

The health officer grinned. “So, you’re ready to go. The second ferry will arrive soon, and you’ll be able to leave the island.”

“Thank you”, Georgie said, then she leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure! What is it?”

“Apart from today- which was obviously crazy- have you ever…” She paused for a moment to find the right words without encouraging the other woman’s distrust. “Have you had days like this before?”

The health officer looked at her confused. But it was fake confusion, Georgie could tell. Or actually feel.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand you.” She started rummaging through her first aid kit.

“Well, don’t get me wrong but you actually seem kind of…calm despite all the happenings of today.”

There was no sign of her annoying cheerfulness on her face anymore. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m doing my job here, and that’s it.”

Great, Georgie thought. I don’t think I will get much information out of her.

“This isn’t everyday Callum,” relied Richard after he saw the poor young man turn a little paler. “It’s a little worse than that. But not by much unfortunately.” He then re-joined the conversation with the others.

“If it’s not demonic possession it’s not a ghost haunting either. Ghost’s don’t make people behave that…” he paused to search for the right word, “animalistic. But that doesn’t change the fact you saw that ghost. Which means we might have a few problems to worry about. You’re right, we better catch up with the others.” Richard pondered for a moment.

“The original colony here vanished without trace. Or at least the inhabitants did. Could that fit into what is happening? Did the ghost look like a ye-oldie colonist?”

“No I don’t think it belongs together. This is the first problem since they vanished it would be too much time between” Lenna was already doing her job, going through each piece of information in her mind. She had basically handed over every responsibility and let the other do the protecting.

“But I agree this is nothing I ever heard of before.” The three went to the building the Sheriff had taken Rome and Georgie. “Let’s get our team back.”

While Georgie was keeping the perky blonde busy, Rome had a moment alone with the Sheriff, who was lying down now, and, if Rome had to be honest, wasn't looking too hot.

"Chopper's gonna be here soon, they tell me," Rome tried, lamely.

The Sheriff nodded. "Yeah. Thanks, kid. Sorry you had to see that."

"Oh, ah, yeah, no worries. I've seen worse."

"Really?" The sheriff looked at him, kind of sadly, knowingly. "Pretty young, ain't you?"

Enough about me. "What's been going on, here? Why'd you shut the park down?"

"It's been in the papers," the sheriff answered, actually going into his pocket and drawing out a stack of newspaper clippings. Rome wished all law enforcement officials were this agreeable.

Rome took the articles and looked through them. One he'd seen before: the little girl, from his vision, who had killed or injured three park workers before falling into the bay and drowning. Awful. Another article was one of the workers who had been attacked, now attacking and killing a park patron. And then a groundskeeper of the park, who had witnessed the first attack...

Rome was beginning to see a pattern.

Just as the door blew open, letting in a cold draft and a flurry of snow. Holy crap, it had gotten nasty out there.

Elenna, Morrigan, Callum and Richard stepped inside. Rome braced himself for Miss Perky America to yell at them to get out, but she seemed otherwise occupied. Rome crossed to Elenna and handed her the newspaper clippings. "Here, what do you make of--"

"Oh, fuck!"

Wait, perky blonde cheerleader health and safety admins couldn't cuss, could they?!

"What's wrong?" Rome asked.

It was a struggle, but she seemed to get a hold of herself after a moment. "Well, there's nothing to worry about, but the wires just went down in the storm. That means we've lost contact with the mainland." She frowned and glanced out the window. "And I don't think they'll be sending the second ferry."

It took a moment for that to sink in.

"Wait, that means we don't need to worry?!"