They’d finished eating for the most part, but they remained in the dining room, sipping juice and coffee, nibbling on muffin crumbs, bored, having run out of things to do and having a difficult time thinking of things to say. He’d felt an instinctive camaraderie with the others the instant he met them, but that feeling had been fading ever since. These weren’t really people with whom he’d choose to spend his time if he had a choice.

God, he wished he could watch a morning show or listen to Howard Stern or… something.

“What’s happening outside this House?” Stormy said. “In the real world? That’s what I’d like to know. Why can’t we have a TV or a radio in this fucking place?” He pushed his chair away from the table, stood, and began pacing. “I’m getting tired of this shit.”

“Who isn’t?” Norton said.

“Can’t we at least have a newspaper delivered with our breakfast?”

“The Ghostly Gazette?” Daniel suggested.

“Very funny.”

Laurie stood. “We’d better stop here before we really start getting on each other’s nerves. Let’s clear the table. I’ll wash the dishes.”

“I’ll dry,” Daniel offered.

“Where’s that leave the rest of us?” Stormy asked.

Daniel grinned. “Free to do as you choose.”

“Great,” he muttered.

There was nothing they had planned, nothing they had to do. They’d searched the entire House yesterday, and today loomed before them, a huge monolith of time. Stormy carried his cup and plate into the kitchen. Last night, he’d begun a sort of journal—notes for a possible movie, actually—with pen and paper he’d found in his room. He had some other ideas he wanted to write down, so rather than plop his ass on a seat in the sitting room and stare at the damn wall, he got himself some ice cubes and a big old glass of water and, excusing himself, went back upstairs.

Where there was a TV in his room.

A TV!

Excitedly, he ran over, flipped it on. Channel 2 was static and snow. The same with channels 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. The only channel that came in was 13, and it was showing some type of documentary, but he didn’t care. Any audiovisual contact with the outside world was like a crust of bread to a starving man at this point, and he was even grateful for the simple physical presence of the television in his room. He’d never realized before how completely and utterly dependent he was on mass communications and he promised himself that if he ever started thinking about chucking it all, moving to a cabin in Montana and living off the land, as he periodically did when business was down and the pressure was up, he’d kick his own ass.