There he was. The shadow man that Kara had tried so hard to tell them the night before.

His dark form nearly filled the window that he was standing in and he appeared as solidly to her in this photo that Josh did standing before her. He was massive. He was creepy as hell. And he was real.

“I tried to tell you.” Kara said softly, resting her cheek back on her arm. Her face was covered in a sheen of sweat, but she was gaining some of her color back.

“I—I honestly thought you were—that he was—Kara, I’m sorry.” Josh managed to get out at last. He leaned his shoulder against the doorframe and shook his head. His blond curls swayed from the movement. “We have to go back.”

Isabelle’s gaze finally moved away from the camera, and her hands dropped between her knees. She was just as stunned as Josh was about what they’d seen on the camera, but neither of them truly knew the horror of what that photo represented for Kara. For all of them.

“We’re going—right?” Josh shifted uncomfortably.

Isabelle watched as he stepped backwards, dropping down onto the bed. The springs groaned from his weight. Beside her, Kara sat up, bracing her hands on the toilet as she shakily rose to her feet.

Kara’s shoulders trembled as her breathing slowed to a normal rate. She glanced between her friends and then down at the camera laying between Isabelle’s knees.

This was the kind of concrete evidence that they had been searching for when they decided to investigate the Divine Creek Apartments. This is what they wanted, wasn’t it? To have proof that ghosts existed? But he wasn’t a ghost, at least she didn’t think so. Ghosts looked like people. Ghosts were people. The thing in that photo, the shadow man, he wasn’t a person. There was no way that he could be. Ghosts haunted places, so he couldn’t have been at the lake and the apartments, right? That just—it wasn’t possible.

“What is he?” Isabelle’s voice cracked through her thoughts, tugging Kara back to reality.

“I don’t know.” Kara admitted. She wiped the sweat from her face with the palm of her hand. Leaning down, she picked up the camera, refusing to look at it again for fear that she would end up bent back over the toilet.

“What do you want to do?” Her friend asked her.

“I don’t know.”

“We—we have proof now, right? So, we have to go back. We have to find out what it is.”

“I don’t know if it wants us to know what it is.” Isabelle whispered as a shiver rippled through her. “Is—is it the same one that you saw at the lake? Is that, like, a thing?”

“He’s the same one.” Kara leaned back against the sink as she spoke. “I don’t know how he got here, or even why he’s here, but it’s him. I can feel it.”

“Like, a spidey-sense?” Josh asked, trying his best to ease the tension they all felt.

“Something like that, I guess.” She chewed on her lip as she thought about what to do next.

They could go to the apartment complex and investigate it further, but who knows what they’d find with him being there now. They could also just call it quits and pack up and go home before anything bad happened. It couldn’t be a coincidence that he’s showed up here. Not after all this time. At least, Kara didn’t think it was. But she did owe it to them to give them the option of deciding what to do too, since it wasn’t just here involved in this investigation. She sighed and nodded to herself, deciding to put it up to a vote. If they voted on it, then it couldn’t be wholly her fault either way, right?

“So, what do you guys want to do here?” She spoke up at last.

Neither of them answered, unsure what to say.

“Look, if it were up to me, I’d probably want to just go home. But I’d be lying if I said a huge part of me didn’t want to run straight to those apartments and try to figure out just what the hell he is doing here.” To her left, she could see Josh nodded slowly in agreement. “So, I think we should vote on it.” She shrugged as if the suggestion were about where they were going to get lunch and not about whether or not they were going to hunt down a horrifying entity together.

“I say we go.” Josh nodded toward the camera. “That bastard may have given me the creeps, but after what you told us last night, I’m curious enough to see it out.”

“Iz, what do you think?”

Isabelle hadn’t said anything yet, she just stared at her hands. Kara gently tapped Isabelles shoe with the toe of her boot. Isabelle slowly looked up, her eyes glazed slightly. She was so deep in thought that Kara could bet she hadn’t heard either of them.

“Iz?”

“I—I think—maybe—.” She trailed off, glancing between them. Her best friend who had been through so much and never told anyone, and her boyfriend who was so vehemently against continuing their hunt last night but so eagerly on board after seeing that terrifying man in the photo. “Is it safe?” She asked.

“I honestly don’t know.” Kara admitted. “But I don’t think it would be any more or less dangerous if we just went home. It’s up to you guys too, how what we do next.”

Isabelle nodded and huffed out a huge breath. “Alright, let’s go.” She scrambled to her feet and stretched out her arms.

“Are you sure?” Kara asked, watching her curiously. The shift between fear and boredom was so quick that the fear could have been a fluke, but Kara knew her best friend well enough to know that it still lingered there under the surface of that mask she wore so well.

“Yup, let’s do it.” Isabelle shrugged. “We came out here to find something and we did, so let’s go—talk to it?”

“I’m definitely not talking to that thing.” Josh shook his head and gave a nervous chuckle. “But I’m still down to go check it out.”

“It’s settled then.” Kara pushed off the sink and bumped her shoulder affectionately into Isabelle’s as she passed.

“I’ll double check the tapes and make sure we’re good to go.” Josh announced. He kissed Isabelle on the forehead and made his way out to the jeep.

“I guess we’re really doing this.” Isabelle mumbled sheepishly as she wiped her damp hands on her pants.

The jeep idled in the parking lot of the Divine Creek Apartments. I sat in the backseat holding the camera in her lap. Josh was drumming his fingers on the steering wheel and Isabelle was fidgeting with the straps of her bag. None of us spoke as they stared up at it.

The apartment we’d seen him in was 3B. From our investigations the day before, we knew that 3B was occupied by a resident and that was why we had avoided it. How could we convince the tenant to let them into the apartment in the first place, let alone set up a station throughout the night to do a ghost investigation?

The first step, of course, would be to ask about who was living in that specific apartment

“So,” Josh spoke up at last. His voice sounded so loud compared to the silence we’d been sitting in. “Should we just knock on the door and say, ‘hi there’s a creepy dude chilling in your window and we want to know who he is’ or—.” He trailed off, unsure what else to suggest in the moment.

“I think that’s probably the worst way to approach it, honestly. But we could definitely knock on the door and introduce ourselves. It’s probably best not to mention the—the photo.”

Isabelle still hadn’t said anything. She looked down at the bag in her lap and kept playing with the strap. It was a tell-tale sign that she was nervous. Josh hadn’t noticed, or if he did, he pretended not to. I cleared my throat and leaned forward, my knees pressing into the center console as I poked my head up between the seats.

“Hey, Izzy.” I leaned my head against the side of Josh’s seat so that I could look at he face. “The weather’s nice today, huh?”

She chuckled softly and gave me a tight-lipped smile. Her brown eyes swam with worry, but she kept a brave face like she always did. Josh, confused by the random question, gave as a ‘you’re weird’ look and shook his head. He grabbed his coffee from the cup holder and sipped from it as his attention went back to the apartment complex.

It may have been a random question to him, but it was our code. Neither of us was the best at communicating out feelings so we had weird secret communication methods to work around the pressures of trying to find words that we couldn’t get out. One of those methods just happened to be asking about the weather. If I asked about the weather being nice, she would say yes if she were feeling okay. If she was a sad, it’d be cloudy or raining. If she was mad, it would be stormy, and so on.

It may seem silly to outsiders that we would talk about the weather in the most random situations, like this one, but for us it was a safety net. And though I wouldn’t tell her, I’m secretly glad that Josh was confused about the question because that meant it was still our secret and only our secret.

Isabelle nodded slowly. “It’s kinda windy, but its not bad.” She said, leaning her head back against her headrest and peering back at me.

“Yeah, that wind’s a bit wild today.” I nodded back and scratched my nose. It’s windy meant nervous, or uncertain. Sometimes it even meant scared.

“There’s no wind, what are you talking about?” Josh grumbled, not looking at either of us.

I rolled my eyes and grinned at Isabelle who met it with one of her own. Yup, our little secret.

“Do you feel like flying a kite?” I pointed with my thumb over my shoulder towards the building.

She sighed but nodded again. Isabelle unfastened her seatbelt and took one last sip of her coffee before climbing out of the jeep and pushing the seat forwards to let me out. I scrambled out after her, grabbing my bag on the way out and slipping it over my shoulder. My heart was thundering in my chest, and all of my nerves were fried, but we could do this. Would do this. I bumped shoulders with her affectionately as we waited for Josh to get out of his jeep.

We checked all of our gear to make sure it was ready to go before slipping the various devices down into our back packs so that we didn’t look suspicious as we crossed the parking lot in broad daylight. Crossing the parking lot that seemed so much smaller now than it had last night seemed to last an eternity.

Josh held the lobby door open for us to pass. I pressed the button for the elevator, and we heard the humming as it moved down. As the doors slid open, the overhead light in the lobby flickered. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled and I rolled my shoulders, trying to shake it off. When I moved to step into the elevator, the elevator light flickered as well, followed by the overhead light, and then the elevator light again.

Absolutely fucking not. We exchanged glances and without a word we all walked towards the stairs in unison. The stairs looped around each other, and we climbed in single file up to the third floor. The carpeted hallway on this floor was vastly different than the second floor that we’d spent last night on.

The second floor had a navy-blue and white checkered print plush carpet lining its hallway. Its walls were and eggshell white and it was very brightly lit and felt welcoming. This floor, however, had a red and black diagonal striped print carpet that felt rough against the tread of my boots. There were lights spaced apart along the length of the ceiling. Each one had a yellow tinted cover on them, like they hadn’t been cleaned in awhile. Or, like they were damaged from the fire. They cast a yellowish glow against the white walls, making them appear dingy as well.

“This isn’t creepy or anything.” Josh mumbled as he took everything in. Isabelle nodded her agreement and clasped his hand tightly. He squeezed her fingers for support and they both looked to me, waiting.

“It’s—uhm—it’s something.” I nodded slowly, trying my best not to ignore the creeping feeling I had that was crawling its way up my neck. It was the same sensation I’d felt when I took pictures of the windows from the jeep. The feeling of being watched. The only difference is now I knew exactly who was watching me.

Right, they were still waiting for me. I sucked in a breath and adjusted my straps, shifting my bag higher on my back and began walking. From the way the doors were lined up, 3A started at the far left end of the hallway and the doors ran alphabetically down to the far right. I could hear their feet scuffing on the carpet as the followed behind me.

I stopped in front of the door for apartment 3B. Isabelle and Josh flanked me on either side and once again waited. Maybe no one would be home, and we could just forget about it. But that little voice in my head told me that even if we did go home, I wouldn’t be able to forget about it. Not until I knew why he was here. Was he here for whoever lived in this apartment? Or, what if he was here for me? Could he have been following me all this time?

Josh nudged me gently and I blinked, shaking my head to clear my thoughts. I offered a small smile over my shoulder and nodded. I raised my fist to the door and hesitated again. My heart was thundering in my chest, and I could feel sweat prickling at the nape of my neck. I lifted my fist to knock and—

“Can I help you?” A voice came form down the hall.

We collectively jumped and whirled around. There was a man standing by the stairwell. He was wearing a blue ball cap low over his eyes, a black jacket, and blue jeans. His arms were full of paper grocery sacks that covered the bottom half of his face, so we identify him at all.

“Hey, we’re looking for whoever lives in this apartment.” Josh called back, jutting his thumb towards the apartment door that my fist was still raised against.

“Yeah? What do you want with him?” The man asked, not moving a step.

“We just had a couple of questions for him.” Josh answered, his hands sliding in his pockets to appear nonthreatening.

I lowered my hand from the door and fidgeted slightly, rubbing the ring finger of my left hand with my right thumb. The man's grip on the grocery sacks loosened and he lowered them just enough to see his face.

“Kara?” He asked.

My eyes widened as I took in the pale face and the scar that curved down his chin. I knew that scar, just like I knew the red hair that would be hidden beneath that cap and the blue eyes that were covered in shadow from its bill.

“Jason.”