The next day was Saturday, so Chardi didn't have any classes. Luckily for him, Derek was willing to meet up with him early. Derek chose a different coffee shop closer to the city, which was fine with Chardi. He would probably be too embarrassed to show his face in Resa's coffee shop for weeks.

  It didn't stop Chardi from pacing his room all morning until Jeff poked his head in to begrudgingly ask if he was okay. From the look on his roommate's face, Chardi assumed he thought all the stress pacing was because of their argument yesterday. It was definitely part of it, but certainly wasn't all of it. Chardi felt a little bad for not explaining. After all, it was unfair to Jeff that he had to cover rent almost every month until Chardi finally saved enough up to pay him some time near the halfway point of the month. But, he didn't feel bad enough to explain the real reason why he was anxious. He just assured Jeff he was okay and Jeff reluctantly left it at that.

  By the time Chardi got to the coffee shop where he was meant to meet Derek, he was a nervous wreck. He was five minutes late, because the series of buses he took to get there had all been running behind. Derek was already there, seated at a window seat and obviously waiting for him with two cups on the table in front of him.

  He stood up when Chardi came in and gestured to the seat across from him. "I wasn't sure what you were drinking yesterday, so I made my best attempt to recreate it," Derek explained in greeting. He gestured at a clear plastic cup with pink syrup swirled in something thick and creamy.

  Chardi looked at it derisively for a moment and cursed Resa in his mind. If she had just given him a normal coffee, he might have got a good free drink instead of whatever the hell was in front of him. Still, free food was free food. So he pulled the cup toward himself and took a sip. It was incredibly sweet and creamy and more palatable than he expected.

  His pleasure must have shown on his face because that little smirk was back on Derek's face when Chardi looked up. He carefully cleared his face and took a deep breath. He needed to remember to keep his guard up.

  "Before we discuss anything, I want to make something clear. Whatever you think I am, you're wrong," Chardi snapped, fixing Derek with a caustic glare.

  Derek Knight seemed unfazed by his declaration. "I didn't make any assumptions about you. It sounds like you've done that all by yourself." When Chardi bared his teeth at that insinuation, Derek held up a hand to forestall whatever he was about to bark out. "Of course, the events that lead up to the Faulton's arrest are mired in rumor and speculation. There's a reasonable explanation for what went on, but I suspect that the reasonable explanation isn't exactly the truth."

  "I don't have to listen to any of this-" Chardi started to hiss.

  "I think you do," Derek cut in, his smile turning positively predatory. His eye teeth looked particularly sharp in the gray early morning light. "You obviously hate me and any mention of what happened back then. Yet, you're here meeting with me. You're desperate."

  Chardi sat back and ground his teeth. He wanted to tell Derek Knight to shove it up his ass and spin on it. He wanted to lean across the tiny cafe table and deck Derek Knight in his stupid white teeth. But, he was right. Chardi was absolutely desperate and Derek Knight was his only hope of avoiding homelessness.

  Derek took Chardi's silence as agreement. His smile turned smug and he sat back in his chair. He leisurely sipped on whatever was in his white cup.

  "So, you need money. That's fine. I've been there. And, I'm a nice guy. I'll give you an advance if you need it, because I'm that generous."

  "What exactly do you want me to do?" Chardi ground out.

  "I guess you've looked me up by now, so you know what I do," Derek replied.

  He was right. Chardi had looked up his name the night before as he was struggling to talk himself into calling Derek.

  The name Derek Knight pulled up a lot of weird stuff. Derek Knight had done a lot of things. He had been a competitive skateboarder in his teens, then a DJ, then a radio personality, and finally started up a YouTube channel where he investigated paranormal activity with the same energy that he used at his DJ and radio jobs. It all looked incredibly fake to Chardi. All of his videos had some kind of paranormal activity: slamming doors, disembodied voices, balls rolling across the floor, footsteps coming from higher floors. All of it was reacted to with fear and excitement from supposed professionals who were hosting the show. Chardi wasn't exactly impressed.

  "This is a big investigation at a legendary haunted location. Obviously your background would tie in well," Derek continued, not pausing for Chardi to confirm if he had looked him up or not.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  "I'm not doing this if you're going to splash my history all over your stupid YouTube channel," Chardi spat.

  "I have no intention of mentioning your past, if you're uncomfortable with it," Derek said with a completely straight face.

  "If you don't want to use my sordid past to farm clicks, then why the fuck would you even ask me anyway? You could find probably a hundred people in Philadelphia alone who would love to do your show and you wouldn't even have to pay most of them."

  Derek's face became cruel for a half second as he said, "Because they're all fakes," and then that dark expression cleared away like a puff of vapor. "Like I said, your past gives you authenticity. And, a connection to missing kids. Especially the ghosts of kids. You're the real deal and I need the real deal for this investigation."

  Chardi's brow and nose wrinkled with confusion. "Wait. Do you actually believe in this stuff?" he asked hesitantly.

  Derek sneered and took another drink of his coffee. "Just because I know how to put on a show, doesn't mean that I don't know a real haunt when I see one. And, this is a real haunt."

  "You can't be serious," Chardi said in disbelief.

  "I'm dead serious," Derek responded completely soberly.

  "So. You want me to come along to some abandoned building in the middle of nowhere, because you're convinced I can really see ghosts. And, that I'll see ghosts there. That's it?" Chardi asked, still feeling like he was missing something.

  "It's abandoned girl's school, but that's essentially it. In two weeks, you'll come meet me and my crew outside this school and spend your weekend helping me investigate it. In return, I'll cover whatever money troubles are bothering you. Good deal, right?"

  "It's too good," Chardi said suspiciously. "What's the catch?"

  "No catch," Derek leaned forward over the table toward Chardi, meeting his eyes intensely enough that Chardi looked away uncomfortable. "Like I said, both you and this place are the real deal. I'm confident that by bringing the two of you together, I can unlock the secret of St. Agnes. You need me and I need you. It's as simple as that."

  "God, you're so fucking creepy," Chardi muttered.

  Derek threw back his head and brayed a laughter. "You're funny," he said, once his deep laughter had died down.

  "I'm really not," Chardi grimaced, reaching for his pink drink and sucking it down through the straw. It was too sweet for him, but the thick cream was satisfying.

  "It sounds like I can count on you to be there. So, should we get down to brass tacks?" Derek asked, still showing off those upsetting sharp eyeteeth. Chardi wondered if people found him attractive. Looking at his lean muscled forearms and straight white teeth, he figured the answer was probably yes.

  "Yeah, sure," Chardi sighed, sucking down more of his free drink.

  Derek pulled a thin expensive looking tablet out of his bag and tapped on it a few times to open it. "St. Agnes Girl's Preparatory School is located twenty miles southwest of Philadelphia. It was opened in 1896 as a cloister for Benedictine nuns. But, it was barely open ten years when it had it's first disappearance."

  Derek turned the tablet around to show Chardi a grainy black and white image of a square building with big columns lining the front. It had two levels of windows looking out onto a circular gravel drive. Derek flicked his finger against the glass screen and the image moved aside to make room for the next image. It was another grainy image, this time of a round faced young woman in a nun's habit smiling above the small headline "NUN GOES MISSING, NO CLUES".

  "Sister Mary Janina was the first, but there were more over the years that the building was a cloister. After the first nun, the church got better about covering it up, but I was able to find traces," Derek explained.

  His finger went flick flick flick against the glass and more photos went by. Pictures of hand written tables of names and dates, pictures of birth and death certificates, more small headlines in newspapers about missing women and girls.

  "By the 1950s, the church decided to shut down the cloister and converted the building into a girl's school, but the disappearances continued."

  Flick flick flick, more headlines and more black and white pictures, this time of young girls in pleated skirts and starched white shirts beside older nuns in habits. The girls were pictured sitting at desks, playing in grassy fields, dancing in a big auditorium, mixed in with more missing persons reports, headlines, questions.

  "Finally, in the 1970s the school was shut down. It spent a few summers as a religious retreat for nuns and priests, but eventually the cost of upkeep led the church to abandon the property completely. For reasons unknown, they never tried to sell it. And none of the disappearances were ever solved."

  Derek finally reached the end of his slideshow, stopping on a color photo of the same building Chardi had seen at the beginning, but this one showing the ravages that time had brought. The windows were knocked out and big woody vines had crawled up the cracked and crumbling columns. The facade was washed in gray dirt and mold, the wooden doorways and windows dark and empty.

  A dark feeling of foreboding came over Chardi as he stared at the image on the tablet. Images of another house, a normal happy looking home, tugged at the corners of his mind. Little kids hiding around corners and peeking around doorways where there should be no one.

  Chardi swallowed hard and tore his eyes away.

  "The few people who know about the place and have investigated it have said that it's incredibly active. I have no intention of faking anything here. I don't think I'll need to." Derek leaned in close. "I think you're going to deliver me the paranormal discovery to end all paranormal investigations. And, in return, I'll make you filthy stinking rich."

  "You're wrong about me," Chardi said, "But I'll take your money, asshole."

  Derek grinned at Chardi with all his teeth. "I'll take it."