1:01pm
The brown-haired, brown-eyed girl of 18 answered the knock on her door. "Yes?"
Peter had to think a moment before he said anything, because he knew he had seen her before. "Ms. Derby?" he finally asked.
"Jillian. You're the people staying in the cabin down the road, aren't you?"
"Uh, not anymore."
"What, you came to give me my cookies back? You can keep them."
"No, it's something else. May we come in?" Peter asked politely.
"Sure, just watch the dogs."
Peter, Lindsay and Anton took their bags and stepped over the threshold into a large open foyer and living room. It was well furnished with leather seats and couches, very modern in style. It was in shades of green and blue, and very airy. They instantly liked the place and felt welcome.
"You came to talk, then?"
"Yeah, more or less," Anton admitted. "We need to know a some things about the snake sightings that occurred a couple of days ago."
"Oh, you're police or something?"
"No, we work with an independent organization."
"Mind telling me what it is?"
"The Office of Scientific Investigation and Research."
"I guess you want the tape?"
Anton looked surprised. "We just came to talk about the sighting, but that would be an invaluable piece of evidence, yes."
Jillian disappeared into a small room off the living room, saying only "we can do that in the living room" as she went.
Peter began setting up the tripod for the camera. Lindsay had an eerie feeling come over her, and she didn't like it one bit.
Jillian came back shortly after with a videocassette in her hand. She popped it into the VCR, turned the TV on and pressed 'play.' A scratchy image of a family came into view; a short woman with graying hair and a pleasant stature, a tall, strange man wearing a Hawaiian shirt and cargo shorts with pockets full of fish, and Jillian standing in between them. They all started laughing and Jillian disappeared behind the camera, taking it from the hands of a stranger who had agreed to help shoot their vacation video. The picture went quickly to the beach, where a girl of about 12 or 13 was making an intricate sandcastle in the mud. All of a sudden they saw something moving in the water just out of the camera range. It was the swimmers coming in, covered in snakes. The camera went to the sky, where they could see things falling from the sky out to sea. Everyone on the beach grabbed their stuff and ran for their cars. A couple of people on the hill stayed and watched for a while, but everyone eventually left. Jillian and who she said were her parents and sister stayed a while longer, watching the snakes rain for another couple of minutes, but eventually shut off the camera and left. There was nothing on the tape after that.
"Is this the original?" Peter asked, looking up from the videocamera he was setting up.
"No, my parents have the original. Why?"
"Just wondering."
Lindsay spoke up. "Shall we start?"
Jillian motioned for them to sit on the couches. Peter insisted on staying behind the camera, as usual.
"Ms. Derby..." Lindsay started.
"Jillian," the girl insisted again.
"Jillian. What exactly happened?"
"The tape shows it all. It just started... raining snakes. Everyone got scared and left. Even my parents and Veronica wanted to leave, but I insisted we stay and see what happened. It was creepy."
Anton started writing in his notebook, thinking about what the girl's voice and body language told about what she had felt at the time of the snakes.
They stayed a while longer, talking about various things from the snakes to what the weather was like around Hawaii. At 1:48, they packed up their stuff and headed back to the lab. 
5:12pm
"Pete, you're back early," Matt pointed out as the three missing members of his team came through the black 'door' to the lab.
"Yeah, I wanted to go over the tapes. We did three interviews after getting the videotape, and I managed to track down the original. I'm going to listen to the tapes, see if I can spot any leaks." Peter took the bag of audiocassettes and went to the computer lab.
Anton handed his notebook to Matt. "I didn't see any sign of mind blocks or psychological problems in any of them. They're all clean."
"Thanks, Anton. You and Lindsay can help Axon with the tapes, if he'll let you."
Anton and Lindsay went over to where Peter was sitting in front of the built-in cassette player. He had headphones over his ears and was taking notes on his lap. Lindsay tapped him on the shoulder and he paused the tape, taking the headphones off. "Yes?" he asked.
"Need any help?" Anton asked from behind Lindsay.
"Yeah, thanks, you guys can go over the videocassettes and see if you see anything the second time around, if you don't mind."
"Not at all." Lindsay turned to the bag of cassettes on the desk beside Peter's feet, taking out the micro camera tape. Her and Anton went a few feet down the room and started playing the interview tapes. |
