"Holy shit, what the fuck? How?" when Stephanie, the assistant set supervisor pulled Jason to the side, others on the set were thoroughly creeped out and only dared to look at him from afar, "How the hell did you find that body?"
"Would you believe me if I told you it was a ghostly shadow?" Jason's stomach was still quite upset at what he saw: "I am your paranormal consultant, after all."
"Yeah well… I thought you were going to do your job on set, you know? Not finding severed hands in the fucking garbage!"
"I was following a shadow of the ghost that lingered on our set, possibly yesterday. What the hell is with this set?"
"Mr. Lin? Can we take a quick statement?" a police officer interrupted Jason and Stephanie's conversation.
"Umm..." Jason looked at Stephanie, who promptly gave him a "go ahead", "Okay, officer. What do you wanna know? I'll cooperate in any way I can."
"How did you find the hand?"
"Umm… I was just walking down the street outside, then I smelled a really really bad stench from the garbage, so I went there to take a look. And then I found the cat's head - what kind of sick fuck kills a cat like that?! And when I looked more carefully I saw the hand." Jason could not tell the officer about the shadow, for obvious reasons, so he left that part out and described the rest.
"And did you see anything weird around the scene when you found it?"
"No, just the cat head, and the cat's blood, perhaps, I'm assuming..."
"Okay, and can you tell me what you were doing on this movie set? "
"I am the paranormal consultant."
"Hmm, paranormal consultant." the officer sounded surprised as he took the notes: "Thank you very much Mr. Lin. We'll reach out to you when we'd like more information."
"Okay. But..." Jason was just about to reach for his phone, and the police officer already went away: "... you didn't get my contact info."
"Hey, Jason. " Robert came over and grabbed Jason by the arm: "Come here."
"Okay… what now?" Jason followed Robert to a small and partially enclosed corner on the side of the set, "Your set is clearly quite unclean, care to share some details with me?"
"Okay." Robert looked to the side, and waited for Stephanie to come over: "I don't want to think about how you found that hand. But you should have talked to us first before calling the police."
"What? Why? That's a human body part there!"
"Yes, I understand, but it'd be important that we know about these things first so we can prepare when the police start coming around and possibly locking up the streets around here." Robert sighed and said: "We have an important shoot tomorrow, and if the police want to lock up the scene or anything, it'd compromise the schedule. Even a half-ass investigation may lock our scene for weeks, and we can't afford to do that. Our PR team will handle the communication with the police, but just know that next time - IF you found something next time, talk to us first, okay?"
"... okay, understood." Jason nodded while frowning, "But can you tell me what the hell is wrong with this movie set? It's the second time I encountered a ghost here. You need to shoot elsewhere."
"We've been asking that ever since the other night." Stephanie said: "The director would not change it - he specifically designated this place for the scene. According to some of our researchers, this place once belonged to a family of five, and in one night the whole family just moved away, saying this place is haunted. Then a few months later the father was arrested for trying to burn this place down."
"What a place you found to shoot your movie." Jason shook his head: "How long are you going to shoot here? Please tell me you're wrapping up soon."
"I'm afraid not really soon, we practically just started. And due to… reasons that you know, we're behind schedule. Terribly behind schedule." Robert said: "When Josephine Wong gets here tomorrow, we'll actually jump the schedule and shoot the scenes we planned for tomorrow, and then we'll catch up to the rest of the scenes."
"That's a crazy stupid idea. The thing that was here was really dangerous, could be far more dangerous than the one we killed the other night." Jason still felt like he had to try to get the crew away from this place: "This place is clearly attracting unclean presence, if you stayed here for any longer, you'd be in big trouble."
"But you can deal with it, right? You and Caroline can deal with it." Stephanie looked at Jason in the eyes: "You're our paranormal consultant."
"Yeah, but this thing could be too dangerous. " Jason said earnestly: "Please, you need to leave this place."
"Okay." Robert and Stephanie both sighed: "We'll try to talk to the director again."
"Alright, please try harder." Jason said: "I'll discuss with Caroline and see what else we can do… "
"Yes, please. And thank you." Stephanie and Robert both patted Jason on the shoulder.
Just right when Jason finished this conversation, his phone rang, it was Tim, a member of his video channel.
"Hello Tim, please tell me you made a decision."
"Yeah, but you're not gonna like it."
"What? You guys really gonna go for it? What the hell? What happened to our brand? Don't you know what they're gonna do?"
"Yeah, I discussed it with Ricky, Jamie and Evelyn. Even counting your vote, you are looking at 2 vs 3. I think we'll have to do the collaboration." Tim said on the phone: "Sorry Jason, but you'll be glad to know that our branding won't be in trouble. Brian from Branston's channel promised a dual channel collab - we appear on their video, and they appear on our video. "
"It's not just that. It's dangerous. Haven't you seen their livestream at the Prime Royals Hotel?"
"And ... Did you know that this is the reason they want to collab?" Tim said hesitantly on the phone: "They found out that you are a member of our channel. And they specifically asked for you. They really wanted you to go with them to venture into the deserted hospital."
"Okay, and can you tell them I won't go?"
"Please, Jason." Tim expectedly became upset and frustrated: "It's not going to be that serious. You guys just need to walk around in an empty hospital."
"No, Tim. You listen to me." Jason said seriously: "This will be dangerous. I was there in the Prime Royals Hotel. I know how dangerous the situation was and we were quite lucky to have made it out alive and sane. This is a bad idea. The Branston Gang is full of idiots. Don't do it, please. You have to listen to me."
"But the thing is." Tim said blandly: "They said they are still going to do it, with or without you. And some of us are going to do it too. This is too good a chance to pass up."