Haunted

by Tredick Foster

  Chapter 5

  The afternoon sun is bright and uninhibited by any clouds in the sky. I’m sitting shotgun in Kyle’s rusty ‘72 F100. I’m not sure how he even keeps the thing running, but it’s pretty much the style everyone keeps in this town. It has an old fashioned stepstyle bed even. God forbid anyone have something new in Potton.

  The wind is shooting through the little vent windows on both doors, which feels like a godsend considering how hot it is. Simultaneously, the wind is blasting through the rolled down window, which my elbow is hanging out of. It’s honestly helping the day feel that much more beautiful in the face of a rural town based on the foundation of xenophobia and willful ignorance.

  “Tell me what happened.” Kyle says, suddenly. I look over, foam cup in my right hand as I sip soda through the straw. We’re just coming back from the diner on the edge of town, getting lunch. Their free wifi is a selling point for most of the townsfolk our age. I figure I’m gonna be there a lot if I’m going to track down people that don’t want to be found, much like who I needed to find today.

  “What happened with what?” I ask. He smirks, “The Darkbreakers gig, man. You were all about that shit when we were working at McSling’s. What happened?” I shrug, leaning on the door as we roll past the biker bar on our left and back towards town. I sigh heavily, thinking about the answer to give. “I don’t know, it couldn’t have been just one thing.” He looks over, the smirk still on his face. “C’mon, it’s me you’re talking to. Tell me what happened.”

  I sit up a bit as I adjust my arm. “Well, I’ll tell you now; it wasn’t some action movie bullshit where my higher up keeps telling me ‘You’re a loose cannon, Gibson!’ or some crap.” Kyle laughs, which causes me to smile a bit.

  “Yeah. I didn’t save the world all by myself and get shitcanned by a captain too worried about public image or whatever. I just fell victim to the system is all.” Kyle quips, “What, you didn’t have 48 hours with a ghost to solve a crime?” I can’t help but laugh as I shoved his shoulder.

  “So I’m still at the Oldbridge branch, right?” I state, which Kyle nods, “Right. Didn’t think they moved you or anything.” I smirk and huff in amusement “Yeah, right. Eleven five an hour, I can’t go much anywhere.” Kyle chuckles, but doesn’t retort.

  For a second I think about how I’m glad I got into the habit of squirreling away money for emergencies. Of course, this little business endeavour of mine just about fucking drained me, save for the couple hundred I was putting away for a rainy day. Now I guess I’ll be living off it.

  “They decide to put me on a case here in Potton. They didn’t offer any kind of help either, so I was solo.” Kyle’s brow narrows, “Not to bust your chops, but it couldn’t have been that bad if they just sent you?” I smirk, looking at him with a Fuck You glare. “You know I didn’t pull this dark detective idea out of my ass, right?” Kyle just shrugs.

  “Missing persons cold case.” I continue, “Some old lady was raising hell about it. The sheriff was done with her, so she moved up to the state cops. Staties didn’t want to deal with it, so they handed it off to us. Then, us became me when they remembered I used to live out here.” The only thing Kyle can muster up is a “Huh.”

  I look out the windshield as we start to head into the town-proper. “So I’m here for like... a week, right?” Kyle nods while I explain, “All I’ve got is a pick-up, a pack, room at the hotel for a week because I don’t want to be back at my mom’s… all for the ghost of some witch.” Kyle gives his signature cackle as we get going down the road again. “Those exist? Combo shit like that?” I can’t help but laugh with him a little.

  “You laugh,” I start, “but those things are a bitch to handle! It’s just me with a Tri-Pack and no one else!” Kyle’s brow narrows, asking “What’s a Tri-Pack?” I nod, explaining “It’s like a regular generator pack we use with the ultraviolet laser wand, but it’s got an ether-vac and an ethereal viewer mounted on the wand.”

  Kyle’s head lifts a little, “Oh, ok. Sounds badass.” I give a smirk, “I can’t say I won’t miss the heavy fucker. But if I could’ve, I would’ve snuck one of them big bastards out with me when I left.”

  I take another sip of my soda and continue. “So a deputy takes me to this old woman’s place. She’s all on about… ‘Oh, that witch killed those kids in ‘94! That movie is gonna get more people killed,’ blah, blah, blah.”

  “Wait, hold on again.” Kyle interrupts, “What movie, now?” I can’t help but chuckle, “Dude, you don’t remember that movie? Back in ‘99, the community college got hold of all this raw footage? Like, some kids were doing a project or some shit in the woods. Kids go missing, leave behind a bunch of VHS tapes. Then, they released it as a fucking movie, got sued by the families, all that shit. You don’t remember that?”

  Kyle just smiles with his eyes wide, “No! This actually happened?” I laugh a little louder, “Yeah! They had to pay the family damages and shit. Made national news for MONTHS! They tried to play it off as some sort of public ‘if you have any information, come forward’ thing. I’ve got a copy of the movie somewhere.” Kyle can’t help but laugh. He doesn’t believe it, so I just continue.

  “So, I’m stuck in the library for a few days, right?” I start, “I’m pulling together all kinds of maps, lore, history, police reports, all that shit. I’m talking Darkbreakers reference guides online, old dusty occult books, the whole nine yards. I even crack open my laptop and watch the movie again, online.”

  Kyle’s still smiling, “You got it fucking covered.” I held my soda up, “I’m talking frame by fucking frame. I’ve got it down pat, goddamnit!”

  We laugh a bit before I continue, “I mean, this really was my first solo gig, but the way the company worked… I mean, I was a little nervous. It was the first time I’d gotten to run the whole show, you know?”

  Kyle reaches over, tapping my shoulder with the back of his hand, “The first time Richard Gibson, Dark Detective really got to shine!” I point to him and spout out “Now you’re fucking getting it! No backup, no bosses breathing down my neck, just the tools and the talent!”

  “Here’s the weird thing though.” I suddenly say. Kyle perks up a little, sitting up straight in the bench seat. He knew things were about to get a lot more interesting. “Whole time I’m looking over this case, the more I’m starting to think that there’s no ghost-witch involved in this shit.”

  He looks over at me, “No ghost-witch?” I slowly shake my head, “No ghost-witch.” He comes to a stop at the second and final light in town. I take a sip of soda as he nods, “No ghost-witch.”

  We get going as the light turns green. I start to explain it in more detail, “Ok, so the whole time I’m looking over the movie, books about witchcraft and spirits in front of me, the more I start to notice that everything happening can easily be dismissed.”

  Kyle looks a little confused. I lean over and put it in more simple terms, “Shit, like people did this, not ghosts.” Kyle’s eyes widened and his mouth hangs open a bit, “No shit.”

  I sit back up, still smirking. “Here’s where shit gets real. I hit up the sheriff; Brendan Brown. Good guy, we go way back. I ask about how deep the investigation went down back in the day. We go straight to the retired sheriff and the case is so old, he can’t even vouch for that shit.”

  Kyle asks, “Was there anything in the police files?” I shake my head, “Fuck no! It’s marked down as a missing persons case. Almost no interviews with people who last saw them or anything.” Kyle jumps in, “You followed up, right?” I nod with confidence “You’re goddamn right I did!”

  “Brendan and I both poured over that first third of the movie and tracked down the people they interviewed for their little project. From there, he cross referenced with people who had priors and ran them down for alibis. It took… and I mean this… Fucking no time at all before we found this one guy. We have him in front of his own house and after a couple of minutes the dude just bursts into tears. I�
��m talking full on Oscar-worthy crying here.

  “He tells us he was in high school at the time. The kids interviewed him after some old man at the grocery story, right? He and a bunch of his friends decide to fuck with the film students out in the woods for a couple of nights, then head back home. Called it a camping trip to their parents.

  “Well, the next night, they get curious if they’re still out there. So they head back out to go to check on them. Turns out...” I paused for dramatic effect, “They find the three kids dead. Murder-suicide, he said. Looked like one of them went nuts and killed the other two.”

  Kyle huffs, going wide eyed while taking the information in. I continue. “So I head back that Friday, get debriefed and I get the weekend off. Head back in on Monday and they tell me I got shitcanned for misuse of company time and resources.”

  Kyle’s brow narrows, leaning forward as we head through the ABC’s – the poor chunk of town, “Are you fucking serious?” I nod, lowering my head, “Yep. Not shit I can do about it, either. In Virginia, they can fire you ‘just ‘cause’ and no one can do a thing about it.” He sits back in his seat, sighing in frustration. “Fuck those pricks then, man.”

  I smirk a little and look over at him, “You know what the real bitch is?” Kyle just looks over, waiting for me to respond. “I actually tried to hit up the higher ups.” Kyle’s brow lifts, still silent as I continue, “Yeah, and I mean any of them. Aaron Schiffer, Bobby Van Buren, even Jack Faust; all the originals.”

  Kyle finally asks, “Who’d you get?” I sigh, slouching back in my seat as I take the final sip of my soda. “Not much. I did find out Schiffer went back to teaching parapsychology at Miskatonic in the 2000’s until he died a few years ago.” Kyle mumbles, “Well fuck…”

  I look over at Kyle and nod, “I know, right? One of my childhood heroes dies and I never fucking heard about it while working in the company he co-founded.” I sigh again, continuing “Faust is on tour with his band again. God knows he’ll never get back to me to save my life. Van Buren’s secretary got back to me though; pretty much told me tough titties.” I look out the window, lamenting on how disenchanted I am by the whole thing.

  Chapter 6

  We pull up in front of a house that’s probably seen better decades, rather than days. This 200+ year old house has more white paint missing than there is left on the siding. The windows are boarded up tight, which is something of a problem for both of us. We get out of the truck and I go into the bed, grabbing my backpack and opening it. Kyle circles around the truck, grabbing a gas can that was resting against the tailgate.

  “So she’s here?” He asks. “Yep” I say as I pull out a small revolver. It’s not just any kind of revolver, though. While the rest of the black .38 Special remains largely unaltered on the outside, the cylinder is noticeably different. The grooves of the cylinder each sport rows of lights. Unseen is the row of lenses in the pipe of the gun. The hammer has a gold tip where it would strike the cap of a cartridge...if it took bullets at all.

  I press the lever forward and pop open the cylinder, looking over the inside before pressing a button. I haven’t ever used this thing before, so I’m eager to finally use it. I spin the cylinder as hard as I can, a whir of clicks coming from the gun. Through the blur of lights, I can see the rows slowly grow longer in red until they all turn green. Once all green, I flick my wrist and the cylinder slaps back into place. It’s much smaller than I’m used to, but it’s a tradeoff for the “unlimited ammo” I get with just a spin of the cylinder.

  “That thing gonna be enough?” Kyle asks. I smirk with a cocky attitude, “Oh yeah, you sure you wanna go in there bare handed?” Kyle shoots an equally cocky smirk back at me. He heads up the concrete stairs, up to the sidewalk, then up to the house ahead of me. I’m not far behind, wondering if he’s gonna be able to handle what’s coming – a baptism by fire. However, if we do it right, this’ll just be a simple initiation.

  I take out my keys, shoving my bump-key into the knob. With a slap of my palm, I’m able to turn and unlock the door. Doing the same with the deadbolt, Kyle asks “Where the fuck did you get that?” I can’t help but smirk, “Made it. Makes having to break into haunted houses a shit ton easier and you don’t look suspicious, either.”

  Inside, the house is a regular crashpad. The living room is sporting four couches; all of them with one to three people sleeping on them at once. However, we get the fairly easy tip-off of the large blood stains leading from the chins and down the chests of each and every one of these “people.” They’re all pale as death with sunken in cheeks. If serial killers could conviene and interact with one another, it would look just like this.

  “Must not’ve been a good hunt for them last night.” I whisper. “That why they look so… corpse-y?” Kyle asks, which I nod. “Yeah. You check upstairs for her, I’ll get things started down here.” He just nods and makes his way up the stairs, gas can in hand.

  Without a second thought, I aim my UV revolver and start firing; a sudden burst of purple light brilliantly flashes out of the barrel with only a humble click and hum. The gun itself vibrates pretty hard in my hand, though. The only thing it left on the undead corpse is a black burn on its chest, barely 10mm wide with bits of glowing embers, shirt and skin, just like ash and coal.

  I do this with all the sleeping bodies in the living room fairly quickly. After, I end up hearing a loud struggle upstairs. Kyle’s growls occasionally piercing through the floor. The cacophony nears a climax: Stomps that sound like they’re from elephants, a full slam into the ground followed by a succession of thuds, as if something were rolling.

  Revolver in hand, I quickly ran upstairs. Skipping every other stair while grabbing the railing with my free hand until I make it upstairs. Gun drawn, I keep it close to my chest in both hands as I stand at the top of the stairs, looking down the short hallway.

  Suddenly, the door to one of the rooms flies open and I turn my body slightly, barrel pointed to the person in the doorway. It’s Kyle with Fiona over his shoulder. His shirt and face have blood splattered on them, both his hands are covered in it as well. I sigh heavily and lower the gun, but Kyle just walks towards me stoically.

  “Uh…” I manage to get out before he interrupts me, “None of it’s mine.” No doubt referring to the blood. He walks past me and down the stairs, finishing “Spark that shit off and lets go.” It’s a strange sight with her being taller than he is. Her long black hair almost touching the stairs as he makes his way down.

  I look into the room, cautiously peeking around the door frame. It’s a bloodbath. The floor is almost flooded. Inside is only one body, the sight of it manages to shock even me, especially considering someone like Kyle was responsible for it.

  Lying on one end of the bedroom is a body, clothed in a dirty and bloody gray t-shirt and jeans. However, you can see the skin along his neck twisted and torn completely off, exposing tendons, muscles and the broken spinal cord. I finally spot the head in the corner of the room; a dent in the forehead. No doubt it had been spiked onto the floor, as if it were a football on the goal line.

  I can only extrapolate what happened exactly: This not-so-poor fucker woke up while Kyle was grabbing who we came for. Of course, Kyle wasn’t carrying anything with him and there’s no sign of anything sharp in this room - just a couple of blood soaked mattresses and random pieces of trash strewn about. Wrappers, crushed cigarette packs and the like. He must have snapped his neck and tore his head clean off. I knew he was strong, but goddamn…

  “Jesus…” I mutter, fighting an almost proud smirk. Once I’m done gawking at the carnage, I see the gas can next to the door. It’s tipped and its slowly leaking its contents onto the floor into a large puddle that’s mixed with blood.

  Picking up the can, I try to pour a modest trail of gas from the room to the stairs. However, there’s not much left, so I just dropped it down the stairs. What’s left splashed on the stairs and walls, or sloshes around inside as it hits the floor.

>   The first thing I do is make my way down the stairs and head towards the door. I should be trying to run, but instead I pop out cylinder of my revolver and spin it, recharging it. Once I reach the front door, I take aim at the gas can at the foot of the stairs and squeeze off a shot.

  The heat from the beam melts into the plastic can and ignites the puddle inside. The air hisses as it’s sucked into the can before the whole thing pops loudly; embers of melted plastic spreading and igniting the trail up the stairs.

  I make sure to close the door and try my best to casually walk from the porch and back to the truck, tucking the gun into the back of my jeans. It’s hot enough outside already, but now I have to deal with the heat of the barrel poking the valley of my ass crack. I make my way down both the wooden steps of the porch and the concrete stairs leading to the street.

  I quickly jumped into the truck. She’s sitting in the center of the bench seat. The hood from her hoodie over her head and a jacket Kyle had in the truck covering her bare legs. All she was wearing was a pair of purple panties. I take a quick assessment of her and see the chewed up printed flames on the sleeves of the navy blue hoodie. I can’t help but remark “So that’s where that fucking hoodie went.”

  “She good?” I ask as I slam the truck door closed. Kyle doesn’t waste any time as he heads down the road while answering me “I’m not sure. I just threw that hoodie on her and headed out.” I lift Fiona’s head up, seeing her face is in a similar state to that of the vampires. “I don’t know, they might’ve turned her.” I say, thinking out loud. “Why else would she be there?” Kyle asks.

  I explain while checking her neck “A lot of times, a nest of vamps will use bait when they hunt. Even when they’re not hungry, they still look pretty dead, though.” Kyle tries to make as many turns down whatever streets he can in the ABC’s. He’s doing his best to try and get as far away from the house while looking like he hasn’t come straight from there.