Really Strange Stuff

=::= Serenity's PoV =::=

"Woah this is perfect!" Callie grinned while her tail flicked around from side to side.

I smiled, "It sure is. Looks even better than the pictures on their website."

Behind us Bailey grumped, "Could you two please keep moving? This stuff's heavy and I don't want to drop it out here in the hallway."

"Sorry babe!" the calico catgirl apologized as she quickly stepped clear to the left.

I moved off to the right as I added, "Sorry Bailey."

The cute redhead moved past us and headed straight for the big king-size bed, where she dumped the two heavy cases she'd been carrying. Then she slipped her backpack off her shoulder and left that on the bed too, before finally taking a look around the spacious room.

"Yeah this is good," she agreed. Then she frowned, "It's actually a really nice suite. They must be losing money if they can't get people to rent this room."

I grimaced slightly as I responded, "I think they mostly just don't tell people about the haunting? They don't advertise it at all, and that's why they stipulated that we could only film here if we didn't identify the hotel. They don't want any bad publicity."

Bailey frowned, "So they're letting unsuspecting people stay in a haunted room without disclosing it? What do they do if things go badly?"

"Not sure," I shrugged. "I only found out about it because I came across a post online where someone mentioned experiencing it? But they weren't complaining, they seemed to think it was kind of cool. From there I did some digging and found out more about the place, but like I said they don't want to advertise it. I guess they figure they'd lose more business from people scared of ghosts than they'd gain from folks who wanted to experience it first-hand."

While the two of us were talking Callie moved over to the living-room side of the suite. She left her backpack and the case she was carrying on the floor next to the coffee table then gestured, "We can do our show from the sofa here. And Bailey can use this table for her laptop and the AV gear. The tripod can go next to that, and everything else can be out of frame in that corner over there."

Our human girlfriend nodded, "Yeah that should work. I see a couple outlets on that wall, so we should be all set for power too."

"Then why don't we get the rest of the stuff out of the car?" I suggested. "After that we can figure out if we want to eat first, or set things up here before we grab dinner."

Callie and Bailey both nodded, so all three of us turned around and headed back out together.

• • • • •

"Ok girls we're going live in five! Four! Three!" Bailey went quiet as she held up two fingers, then one. Finally she tapped a key on her laptop, then pointed to Callie and I to indicate we were now on the stream.

The calico catgirl next to me gave the camera a relaxed friendly smile as she began, "Hey folks, welcome to our special secret haunted live-stream! I'm Callie Wilson, and this here's my partner Serenity Varela."

She continued, "As usual we've got the incredibly capable Bailey Hoffman managing things from the other side of the camera. And once again our good friend Gorgonz-Hola is our master moderator in the chat."

"Shout-out for the Gorgon!" I interrupted.

Unlike past streams Bailey had her own mic set up tonight, and she joined in with a "Shout-out Gorgon!"

"Yeah!" Callie grinned, "Shout-out Gorgon! Let's also welcome our newest moderator, Fluffkat!"

I interjected once again, "Shout-out Fluffkat!"

"Shout-out Fluffkat!" the cute redhead repeated.

My calico cohost smiled as she copied the two of us, "Shout-out Fluffkat! Don't let the fluffiness fool you though folks, this kitty's got claws. She'll be helping Gorgonz-Hola to keep the chat clean and on-topic."

She paused there for a sip of water from her her RSS-branded mug before continuing, "Now you regulars have already figured out that we're not coming at you from the Really Strange Stuff world headquarters tonight."

"That's right Callie," I chimed in. "We are on location in a bona-fide haunted hotel room, just outside Sault Ste. Marie in Michigan. We had to promise the manager that we wouldn't share the name of the place, but I can tell you it's a beautiful room with a lovely view of the Soo."

That was Bailey's cue, and she tapped another key on her laptop. Then she provided a voice-over as some pre-recorded footage rolled on the stream, "We've got the St. Marys River practically just outside our window. That's Canada over there on the far side, and those buoys you can see in the water indicate where the main shipping channel's located."

While our human girlfriend was talking I took the opportunity to check the chat activity on my tablet, and Callie looked at her phone. The numbers were good, but not great. I knew that was partially because we'd started the stream an hour later than usual, despite being in an earlier time zone. We normally began at nine PM central but tonight we held off until ten o'clock, which was eleven PM locally. We'd agreed on the later start so the stream would end just past midnight.

The real problem though was lack of advertising, due to the short notice. We really couldn't start promoting tonight's show until we knew for sure it was happening, which meant we didn't get the word out until late Wednesday. That was only two days ago, and combined with the fact that the stream was restricted to our paying members meant we only had just under two hundred people tuned in.

Then again, six months ago we'd have killed for that many live viewers. Heck we'd have been happy with half that, so I really couldn't complain. Plus tonight's stream had only just started, odds were the number would creep up as more folks tuned in.

Meanwhile Bailey switched to another clip we filmed earlier as she continued, "Speaking of shipping, this is one of the biggest freighters on the entire Great Lakes! This thing's over a thousand feet long, and it sailed right past our hotel room a couple hours ago. Which brings us back to the reason we're here. Serenity?"

She tapped another key on her computer, returning the stream to the live camera feed as she pointed at me again.

"That's right," I replied as I set my tablet aside and looked into the camera. "The Great Lakes can be a dangerous place to work, and Superior especially is known for its shipwrecks. The information I found that led us here suggested that the spirit haunting this place may in fact be a victim of one of those lost ships. Bailey you took the lead on researching this haunting, did you find any ships that may have been the source of the activity here?"

The cute redhead took over again, and I knew she'd be putting a couple old still photos up on the stream. So I had a few gulps of my soda, kept cool in my RSS-branded can coozie of course. I also did my best to keep a straight face, since I knew full well that the 'research' Bailey did was basically just stuff she found on her phone during the long drive here today.

"We have two candidates Serenity," our girlfriend explained for our viewers. "First up, this is a picture of a vessel called the Sagamore. She was a barge built in eighteen-ninety-two, that went down in nineteen-oh-one not far from this very spot. She sank after a collision with another ship, and sadly three of her crew went to the bottom with her, including her captain. The survivors were brought here to the Soo, and it's possible those lost sailors made their way ashore to seek out their fellow shipmates."

After a pause Bailey went on, "Now this one is a real mystery. The SS Bannockburn is known as the Flying Dutchman of Lake Superior, because she vanished without a trace back in nineteen-oh-two. She was originally launched in eighteen-ninety-three, and when she set out from Thunder Bay Canada on her final voyage her destination was right here, she was heading for Sault Ste. Marie. She was never seen again, but it's possible the spirits of at least some of her crew made it here to their final destination."

"The wreck of the Bannockburn was never found," the cute redhead added, "But a few months after her disappearance a single hull plate turned up right here in the Soo, suggesting another possible connection between the missing ship, her crew, and our possible haunting."

With that she gestured towards my cohost and I again, so we knew the camera was back on us.

"Thanks Bailey," I responded as I set my drink down. "That's pretty amazing stuff. Callie, what sort of experiences have people reported here, what should we be looking for tonight?"

My calico cohost looked and sounded excited as she took over, "The good news is all the reports we've seen here suggest that this haunting is actually fairly benign? While the hotel manager wouldn't give us numbers, our informal research suggests that guests staying in this room will almost always experience at least a few unusual events. The most common being knocking sounds, as if someone was rapping their knuckles on the walls or furniture."

She continued, "Another common experience is guests waking to the sound of movement, as if there was someone else in the room with them. A few guests have reported hearing a man's voice. Either something distant like someone mumbling from across the room, or something much closer, like someone whispering nearby."

"And the rarest of all," she added while her ears flicked and her tail twitched, "One young woman reported having an actual conversation with a ghost, right here in this very room."

I smiled, not just because once again all that 'research' was just stuff I'd dug up online after I first heard about this place. I kept up the excited look though as I reacted, "Wow Callie! That's some really strange stuff!"

She smiled back and nodded, "Sure is Sere! But here's the kicker? Most of the reports from this room have been made by women. It seems our ghost has a thing for women. And considering there's three of us spending the night here, I'm hoping that means we've got a good chance of catching some real activity. If not live on the stream then maybe afterwards, when we've all gone to bed."

My smile got a little wider at that last thing she said. After all, that was the reason the three of us were here. This was our first date as a polycule, and we'd already had a nice romantic dinner at a local restaurant. After we finished the ghost hunt part of our night the three of us would all be sharing a bed for the first time, and I was positive both Callie and Bailey were as excited about that as I was.

For now I pushed those thoughts aside and forced myself to focus on the stream instead. I suggested, "Now that we've got the viewers up to speed on where we are and why we're here, how about we run through our plans and the gear we're using here tonight?"

"Sounds good," my cohost agreed. She went on with a fairly typical run-down of things like EMF meters, contactless IR temperature sensors, and audio recorders for detecting EVP.

Then the two of us explained how we took a bunch of readings when we first arrived, to get a baseline of the room. And we demonstrated that the sensors were all still recording, so we'd have data from when we began the stream on through the night.

At that point we were finally ready to begin the actual ghost hunt part of the show, and to set the mood we turned out all the lights in the room. That meant the only illumination was from Bailey's laptop screen, and two small tea-light candles that we set up on either side of the sofa so Callie and I would be visible on the stream.

Then with the mood suitably set Callie looked around our darkened hotel room and asked, "If there are any spirits here seeking to communicate, please make your presence known. We're here and we're listening."

"My name is Serenity," I added softly. "This is Callie, and that's Bailey over there."

We were all quiet for a few minutes after that, as we waited and listened for any kind of sign. The silence was eventually broken by our human girlfriend.

"Did either of you just -" Bailey started to ask, but she was cut off by two sharp rapping sounds that made all three of us jump slightly.

"No way!" Callie gasped. Her ears folded back and her tail twitched as she added, "Tell me that wasn't someone at the door. We put up the do-not-disturb sign, right?"

Our human girlfriend shook her head as she replied in an excited half-whisper, "That didn't come from the door, that was right here on the coffee table. Those knocks were strong enough my laptop screen shook."

"What were you about to ask us, before it happened?" I prompted her.

Bailey grimaced, "I got goosebumps, like the temperature just dropped? I was wondering if either of you noticed that."

Callie grabbed one of the IR temperature sensors and started scanning around the hotel room with it as she watched the numbers, "I'm not seeing any big temperature shifts. It's all within baseline readings."

Unfortunately that turned out to be the only excitement on the stream. Things quickly got quiet once again, and our viewer count started slowly creeping downwards as folks got bored and signed off.

We tried to provoke some additional activity by talking to the spirits a few more times. We mentioned those two shipwrecks again and asked if the names meant anything to whoever was there with us, but even that failed to get a response. Unfortunately it seemed like whoever or whatever knocked on the coffee table had moved on. Just past midnight we finally agreed to wrap things up, but we promised those viewers who'd stuck with us that we'd post a follow-up on our channel later on if we encountered any more strangeness overnight.

"That was a bit of a let-down," Callie complained as we started putting away the streaming gear. "We had a good strong start, then nothing."

I shrugged, "You know how it goes. We're lucky we got anything at all."

The calico catgirl pouted, "I know, but it felt like such a tease."

"Maybe you should have used your plushie after all?" she added as she looked to Bailey.

The cute redhead grimaced and shook her head, "We all agreed to focus on the ghost hunt tonight. And I'm still not sure about the plushie, ok Callie?"

"Yeah I get it," my cohost grudgingly agreed. "Sorry."

We left the EMF meters set up, along with the temperature sensors, but we turned off the EVP mics since we didn't want them recording our conversations, or any other noises we happened to make once we were in bed. And the expensive camera gear was put away, but we had our phones incase anything happened that we wanted to try and record or photograph.

We took turns in the large washroom, and once we were all ready the three of us climbed into the big king-size bed together. I was in one of my soft satin nightgowns, while Callie and Bailey were both in comfy cotton nightshirts. Although I had a feeling the nightclothes wouldn't last very long.

My petite calico best friend ended up in the middle, and I soon found myself cuddling against her left side while our other girlfriend cuddled her from the right. Before long the cuddles gave way to kissing, then more. And soon enough the ghost hunt was all but forgotten, as our first date night together got much more exciting.