Just joining us? You may want to start at the beginning.
JD stood up and started pacing behind the table, eyes not seeing the room around him. Wendy watched him intently, studying every movement as he strode like a caged tiger.
"Okay," he uttered as much to himself as to them, "so if the window opened while we were outside with Wendy, that explains several things. It explains why the thermometer registered the drop in temperature ..."
"And the amount of the drop," Wendy added, "almost 10 degrees I think."
"... yes, that's right," JD agreed, briefly turning to her before going back to pacing. "We were on the far side of the house then, opposite the parlor. If the window opened, we wouldn't have heard it over Dillon's din anyway."
"Wen fuffin' 'cared me, mofo," Dillon mashed through another bite of his burger.
"I know, I know," JD said, "but still, it was noisy. We wouldn't have heard the sound, even though it's not quiet. And when we came back inside, the event had passed. It was only a few more minutes before the two of you saw the silhouette. So, based on Wendy's assertion that she arrived about nine, we have ..." JD checked his watch and noted the time, "about an hour and a half before the replay starts. If it's time triggered, that is."
"Dude," Dillon said, swallowing a large gulp of milkshake and leaning back in his chair, "whatta we do 'til then? More boring crap?"
"Well," JD said, "if we find a wireless router in the house we may be able to do some research on the Internet, but I don't have a laptop with me. Do either of you?"
Wendy shook her head no, Dillon held up his hands with an expression that emphasized his answer to the negative.
"So, that's out," JD said, going back to pacing. "What I'd be interested in finding is what the weather was like on the day of Officer Brown's disappearance."
Wendy nodded. "The fog."
"Yes. It was part of the playback, so I'd like to know if it was part of the original events. That'd help us understand how accurate the playback is."
"Dude, what if it's really ghosts?" Dillon said, sucking on his milkshake again as he wadded up the last grease-soaked burger wrapper. "I mean, what if the fog's, like, a ghost-fog thing?"
JD stopped and looked at him. "It's probably not ghosts, but it would help to see if the events we're seeing are just the ones we're witnessing, or if they're a jumble of time periods."
"How, JD? The fog could be from a different time period, but what's to say it wasn't foggy on that night too? We're pretty close to the river here, and it's foggy quite often I'd bet."
"Yeah, dude, what she said."
"That's true. That's why having access to the Internet would be helpful. Of course, the house is extremely old. If the recordings are coming from the house itself, it'd be hard to ascertain. But at least we'd be sure whether we could rule it out or not."
"But we'd have no other way of knowing if the fog was from another day, and if so, what day."
"Yeah, dude, what she said."
"True again, but it'd be a starting point. We try to eliminate the possibilities as much as we can. If we can't, we have to go about doing what we're doing anyway."
"Nuthin'," Dillon snorted.
"Our hands are tied here a bit, I'm afraid."
"What preparations have you made?"
"Well, I've pointed the camera at the corner where you and Dill said the silhouette disappeared," JD said, gesturing past Wendy toward the corner of the room. "And I brought along a portable video recorder, so we can record outside when -- IF -- the playback begins. Dillon also suggested having an audio recorder on hand, and I keep one around for unexpected EVP, so that's ready."
"EVP?" Wendy tilted her head, her brows knit in confusion. JD's heart leapt into his throat at the sight of her expression.
"Uh ... y-yes," he stammered, regaining his composure. Somehow confessing his love for her made him even more vulnerable to her charms. "It stands for electronic voice phenomenon. The idea is that audio recordings sometimes capture voices of the dead, or spirits, or whatever. It's ... questionable. Like the stone or water tape theory."
"So you're ready for sound," she finished.
"Well, I'm going to try and gather as much information and data as I can, and then I'll be able to analyze it in greater detail later."
"You're so smart," she smiled, and blew a kiss at him.
He blushed furiously.
"Gag, dudes, gag," Dillon said. "But JD, man ... like, the people that live here didn't say nuthin' 'bout none o' this, man. How d'ya know this stuff's parta their stuff?"
"How do I know ... what?"
Dillon sighed. "How d'ya know that the stuff you're lookin' at with the whole thing goin' on with the stuff outside an' the stuff the people that live here called ya 'bout are the same stuff, dude?"
"I don't. That's part of the problem we have. I don't have any way of knowing what's connected to what."
"So, if y'do all this tweety crap an' get all this stuff together an' shit, whatcha gonna do about it?"
"Not surprisingly, I'm confused."
"Dilly's asking how you're going to examine the evidence you gather in more detail until and unless you know where the data comes from. If you don't know that up front, there's no way to tell what's related to the case and what's just ... spew, I guess."
"Yeah. What she said ... I guess."
"Uh ... well, it doesn't matter, first of all."
"What?"
"Yeah, dude, whuh?"
"Just getting evidence of a water tape replay would be a boon," JD said, and smiled. "But, all we really need to look at are the major events. The entire scenario we witnessed last night is clearly something of import. We can examine those details and see what actually occurred."
"Then you're convinced that we saw the murder of that cop? Robin Brown?"
"But we ain't seein' no ghosts, right?" Dillon added.
"Not entirely, and yes," JD said. "I don't know if we're seeing the murder of Robin Brown. No one even knows if he was murdered. But we did see something terrible happen. If it's a playback of actual events, we may be able to get close-ups of the players involved, audio bytes of their conversation, things like that. It will help us figure out what's going on."
"I suggested we were being asked to solve that murder we saw," Wendy said, "what do you think of that theory?"
JD smiled at her and dropped his gaze to his shoes. "Your theory means it's a ghost. I still don't think it is."
"DUDE," Dillon said, throwing his arms out in disgust. "What the hell's wrong with ya, man?? This is so a ghost!"
"Not again," JD said quietly.
"Seriously, man! C'mon, what's it gonna take??"
"We don't have any solid evidence yet, period."
"Will you be getting that tonight, Jaded?"
"Yes," he said definitively. "Tonight I'm going to be ready. If something happens -- if anything happens -- I'll get it recorded somehow. Then we can be sure."
"Sounds pretty exciting to me," Wendy said, smiling.
"It might be, yes," JD agreed softly, smiling at Wendy warmly. "If anything happens."
"I'm sure it will, baby," she cooed seductively. "I believe in you. You're not going to be wrong here, sexy."
He blushed again, sharply, casting his eyes down but smiling.
"GAG, dudes! C'mon with th' love-bird crap, I just ate!"
Wendy giggled. "Okay, so we have about 90 minutes. What do we do until then? Computer research is out."
"Yes, and I don't want to leave just in case there's a variable in the actual hour of the day. So ... I don't know. I'm content to just wait, but I'm going out on a limb to bet that Dillon can't keep interest that long without falling asleep."
"Dude. Hostile."
"You do have a short attention span."
"Dilly's not a child, though," Wendy coddled as she went around the table and hugged Dillon from behind, draping herself over his shoulders. "Are you, Dilly?"
He turned his head to let her hug him and slurped the last drops of milkshake out of his cup. "Whuh? Whudja say Wen?"
She giggled wildly. "Never mind." She pecked him on the cheek and turned to put her arms around JD. "We could go upstairs," she said, running her tongue lightly over her lips and teasing with her eyes, "and do some ... chemistry."
JD blushed again, eyes bulging. "Wendy!"
"Seriously, Wen, I mean it dude ... I just ate. I don' need the visuals, 'kay? I'ma hurl."
"It's less than 90 minutes. We can be grown ups for that long," JD said as he kissed Wendy lightly on the forehead.
"Dudes," Dillon interjected. "I'm bored. What're we gonna do?"
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