Dan's Hauntastic Haunts Investigates

by Alex Silver

  I’m not sure what I’d expected. The syringe wasn’t big. And Chad had laid out his other supplies on the table at his side, all familiar from my many hospital stays. Another needle, still capped, an alcohol wipe, and a small sharps container.

  My eyes caught and held on him. He wasn’t a gym bunny. He had some pudge around the middle. But he’d inked his chest with a pair of gorgeous tattoos.

  The bright scales of a dragon in vibrant blue and green curved around one pectoral and the other bore a roaring lion in shades of gray.

  Chad caught me staring and gave a self-conscious chuckle.

  “I’d do it in my bunk, but there isn’t enough room,” he nodded toward the narrow partition.

  I swallowed, “No problem, just admiring your ink.”

  It sounded like a flimsy excuse for staring at him, even to my own ears. The truth was, I liked him. And the part of my brain that processed that attraction didn’t give a rip for higher morals and not hitting on my employee.

  The guy half naked in my home had my dick taking notice. Even though nothing could happen between us.

  It was a strange realization though. To go from professional admiration of the man to acknowledging that the warm feeling in my chest when I saw him was genuine attraction. I hadn’t had a real life crush in years. It threw me off balance.

  “Hello?”

  “Sorry, what?” I’d missed what he said.

  “I was saying I got them to cover up the top surgery scars. Plus, it draws the eye away from my pudge, so win-win. What about you, have any tattoos?”

  “Um, no,” I said, swallowing hard. “I do not, don’t much care for needles. I can see you know your way around them though,” I gestured.

  Chad laughed, “Necessity, you should have seen me fumbling around with the vials the first few months. It was a travesty.”

  I watched as he expertly finished preparing the injection. He set aside the vial, and pushed on the plunger to expel any air, before capping and replacing the used needle with the safety needle from the table. He set the prepared med aside while he swabbed a patch of skin near his hip.

  I should have looked way when he pinched the spot he’d cleaned and pushed the needle into his flesh. I winced, but couldn’t seem to tear my eyes away as he slowly injected the testosterone.

  “Why is it taking so long?” I demanded, squirming at seeing the needle still lodged in his skin.

  Chad glanced up at me, looking amused, “it’s an oil suspension. That makes it a time release depot, so I only have to inject once every two weeks. I’m lucky that I don’t notice too much of a taper effect between doses so I can get away with biweekly injections. The tradeoff is that the suspension is too viscous to push in fast like a flu shot or something.”

  “Oh.” I somehow closed my mouth on any unhelpful commentary about that. Even the thought of giving myself an injection made me squeamish. The prolonged injection time had my skin crawling.

  “You get used to it,” Chad said, reading me like a book. He removed the needle, activated the safety cap, then put it in the sharps container.

  A drop of blood welled to the surface of his skin. Chad pressed a square of gauze over it, massaging the area for a while before applying a bandaid.

  I realized I was still staring when he reached for his shirt.

  “Sorry, I can give you privacy for that.”

  “It’s fine. I mean, I don’t mind doing it in front of you. It’s not like there’s much place for you to go, especially with your leg. Unless you think you might faint at the sight of it?” Chad added the last with a teasing lilt.

  “No. That’s fine. I only want you to feel comfortable.”

  “Okay. Well, we have work to do, right? Did the IR camera pick up anything interesting after we went to bed?”

  My mind tripped over the phrase ‘we went to bed’. Going to bed with him would be wonderful. And wrong. So wrong. Head out of the gutter.

  I cleared my throat, “Um, good question, let’s check.”

  Chad tidied away his injection supplies while I logged onto the computer beside him at the editing station. I pulled up the files the camera had sent to my email inbox.

  I focused on the screen instead of watching him wriggle back into his bunk. No checking out my employee’s ass, that would cross a line. There would be no line crossing here.

  Work was a welcome distraction from the fact that I had it bad for my assistant.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Chad

  I’d made Dan Collins tongue tied. The gorgeous guy I’d spent the past few years pining over had noticed me. Me of all people. They guy who was so shy he could barely speak up during roll call as a kid.

  And I couldn’t act on it. Not when a workplace romance had the potential to ruin everything between us. Better to make a close friend in Daniel than risk my new job over a fling.

  Daniel was becoming a good friend too. A friend I could talk to about Mom and Kay. Someone who worried about me when I shared the raccoon incident instead of laughing at me.

  A friend who cared beyond the surface stuff. Something I’d lacked for too long. So it wasn’t worth risking that connection to get laid.

  Even if Daniel first thing in the morning was my idea of a walking wet dream. Okay, objectively, he was kind of average looking—I got that. Brown hair, brown eyes, average height, medium build. But that didn’t capture the way his eyes sparkled when he got passionate about a topic.

  It didn’t account for how safe I felt with his arm wrapped around me when we fled the barn the other day.

  The sheer power of his belief almost had me convinced the incident was more than a mere flight of fancy. That there was an enraged spirit on our heels.

  It was nonsense of course, but that was the power Daniel had over me. He made me want to believe in the fantastic.

  Or maybe that was the part of me that wished I’d gotten the chance to be honest about myself with my mother. To know, without a doubt, she still loved me.

  That was pure fantasy on my part though. I never told her I was trans, so I never got to hear her call me her son. Never heard my name on her lips.

  No ghost would fix that empty ache in my chest at not knowing for sure how she would have taken the news. Kay had hugged me and offered me whatever help I needed figuring stuff out when I told her.

  I’d only had the guts to come out after I’d moved into my crappy student apartment. Proven to myself I could put a roof over my head if she reacted badly.

  Kay claimed Mom wouldn’t have cared. She loved us too much to care about that. In my head, I knew my sister was right.

  Mom had never been a bigot. She’d asked me near the end if the reason I hadn’t dated through highschool was that I liked girls. Assured me that who I loved didn’t matter to her. I figured who I was wouldn’t either. But in my heart, I still wished I’d taken the chance while she was alive.

  That might be the real root of my fascination with Daniel and his paranormal investigations. He could offer me the hope of getting that absolution from my mother. Of confirmation she loved me as much as her son as she had as her daughter.

  And I was being maudlin while Daniel worked. I stashed my stuff and rejoined him at the editing desk. The overnight footage revealed little more than a boring still shot, no signs of a ghost.

  The only movement was a squirrel scampering down the ladder around dawn. It looked kind of cool in the infrared. A blurry blob of red and yellow color gradients.

  Dan seemed unperturbed by the lack of results.

  “We’ll try again tonight,” he declared. “What’s on the agenda today?”

  “Interviews with dairy staff this morning. If you want to handle those without me, I can look into casting for the flashback scene. I got the impression talking to Ben and Steph the other day that no one working here has much to add to what we already know, but it never hurts to be thorough. I’ll meet you for lunch and to prep for the Leon interview.”

  “Great. Depending on how long
the interview with Leon takes, I’d like to take another look at the library archives today. The librarian the other day said that the woman who works today is a local history buff. She might point us toward more useful information.”

  “If nothing else, having a segment with a local historian will make for a more interesting means to present the background information to our viewers,” I said.

  Daniel would know that already, but I wanted to show him I took his show and my job seriously. It must have worked because Daniel grinned at me in response.

  “My thoughts exactly. We can get her on film talking about the plight of the dairy industry in the late twenties through to the thirties. Have some film releases ready to sign, all right?”

  “You got it, boss.”

  Daniel took his time gathering what he needed for the interviews, then I drove the van over to the dairy offices. He left to do the staff interviews. I got on my phone to double check the regulations for child labor in Vermont and sent the film release forms to Daniel’s blue tooth printer.

  My immediate jump to prepare the paperwork was optimistic. Nothing said I would find someone to sign those forms today, but I liked to feel prepared. I shrugged off my doubts.

  Once they were ready, I slid the printed pages onto a clipboard and went to find Tara. She was my best bet to point me toward local candidates to play she and her brother as kids. I was excited to make it happen. If we could pull it off, the flashback scene would be epic.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Dan

  The morning spent conducting employee interviews dragged. I didn’t mind this step most months. Loads of people repeating the same urban legends was par for the course with these shoots.

  When so many people agreed about spirit activity, it often meant there was some kernel of truth to the claims of a haunting. Experience informed me this was a good sign. But it made for a dull morning.

  Or maybe it was just dull because Chad wasn’t there with his shy smiles and his way of anticipating my every request. He excelled at making sure I had what I needed in arm’s reach this past week. He shouldn’t be indispensable already, but there it was.

  Probably just the injury making it seem that way. Normally, it was no effort to get my own drink. With my crutches and the lingering ache in my broken leg, simple tasks became a pain.

  I was glad to finish with the last employee. I made a triumphant return to Vanessa for lunch. It didn’t even surprise me when the side door slid open as I approached. Chad must have seen me leaving the farm office.

  Once again anticipating my needs. I climbed into the van with some difficulty, stiff from my morning sitting in Lara’s office.

  “Interviews ran long?” Chad asked, sympathy in his voice.

  “A little. Nothing we haven’t heard already, but they all put their own twist on it. I’ll edit down the footage so we can use the best-worded quotes for the video. Ben films well, he’s very animated.”

  “Perfect, here, sit. I made grilled cheese, nothing fancy, but it’s a quick meal. And it uses the fresh bread Lara and Jane sent home with us the other night. Saves us time to get set up for Leon, since I figured this segment will be a big part of the video, right?”

  “Yeah, that’s the plan,” I agreed, pleased with his enthusiasm for the show. “How about you? Any luck?”

  I bit into the sandwich he slid in front of me and suppressed an appreciative moan—it was good. He’d put more than just cheese inside. I thought I tasted bacon and something sweet and crunchy, closer inspection revealed apple slices. Weird, but delicious.

  “As luck would have it, yes. Lara told me Steph babysits a brother and sister who might fit the bill. They’re the right age and general appearance. She gave me their mom’s number. When I called, the mom sounded delighted. She offered to bring them out to the dairy this weekend.

  “I sent her a summary of what we want to film. So, as long as she still approves after reading through everything, I’ll get her to sign the release forms first thing before we film with the kids.”

  “That was fast, I’m impressed.”

  “It helped that Lara let me offer them a free tour package and some ice cream vouchers to sweeten the deal. With the budget you gave me for this episode, we can cover enough to pay the kids at least minimum wage for a few hours of filming.”

  “Great! Also, you are the official grilled cheese maker now.”

  “You like it?”

  “Yeah, it’s good.”

  “Mom used to put the apples inside because I wouldn’t eat my fruits and veggies as a kid. She tricked me into eating all kinds of stuff by covering it with cheese,” he chuckled. “Hidden broccoli and cauliflower lurking in my mac and cheese. Or shredded carrot and zucchini. She put those in cupcakes too. Made me think I was getting dessert when, in actuality, I was getting the next thing to a salad. The beetroot ones were a pretty shade of pink though.”

  “Beetroot cupcakes?” I wrinkled my nose. No amount of sugar and chocolate could make beets palatable. They were hands down my least favorite vegetable.

  “Yeah, you’d think the flavor would have given up the game, but she made this fantastic frosting so it hid the flavor of the veggies in the actual cake. Mostly.”

  “Why not lick off the frosting?” I asked. That’s what I would have done as a kid.

  Chad laughed, “That question proves you never met my mom. The only time I tried that, she took away my dessert privileges for a week. She informed me that if I didn’t like carrot cake, she and Kay could eat the entire batch of cupcakes without my help.”

  “You poor thing,” I commiserated.

  “I thought so, taught me to eat the hidden veggies if I wanted sweets though. Anyway, the grilled cheese with surprise fruit was one of my favorites.”

  We finished the rest of the meal without saying much else, beyond my making more comments about how good it was and Chad looking flustered at my effusive praise.

  Then we got set up to film Leon’s interview. I figured it would be neat to capture the mood of a working diary, so we were filming outdoors. The weather was cooperative. A nice shade of overcast without too much wind to screw with the sound.

  I had Chad stand where I intended to be for the segment. Then I framed the shot, so we captured the big iconic looking red barn that housed the ice cream bar and where Jane sold tickets for the dairy tours. I also wanted to capture the bucolic feel of rolling green pastures with the lazy black and white cows dotting the landscape.

  My exacting instructions had always left my previous assistants fed up well before I got the shot perfect. Chad got me though. He tolerated my meticulous attention to detail over the show with good grace.

  Once I had the shot framed, I had Chad mark out the positions for Leon and I to stand. That should make sure Chad’s inexperience with filming wouldn’t mess up my perfect background. He was a good sport about it.

  “Move a step left, no my left, okay, now stop.” I checked the shot, frowned and gestured for him to move again. “No, sorry. Take a few steps back. Wait… um, come forward,” I spared a glance at him over the top of the camera, still not right. “A hint more to the left. Now up on your toes, you’re a little shorter than me, I want to ensure my head will fit in the frame.”

  Chad took it in stride, waiting until I had everything perfect. I had him mark his spot with a chalk line then repeated the process with him playing the role of Leon. He marked Leon’s spot without complaint too.

  I clipped a mic to my shirt collar and showed Chad how to get Leon mic'd up too when he arrived. With outdoor filming the sound quality would be better with microphones.

  Filming the interview with Mr. Dawes on his front porch was one thing. The open fields of a working dairy would create more background noise to cut out in post. I’d worry about that later, it would be a learning exercise for Chad at any rate.

  We’d accomplished a ton in just over a week. I still needed to make time to reshoot a bit of the barn scene to finish editing this weekend�
��s gear review episode. We hadn’t gone back inside since the spirit drove us away on the first afternoon, other than a quick trip to retrieve the lighting kit.

  Chad seemed leary of the barn so I hadn’t pushed him about going back inside yet. I needed to shoot the footage today or tomorrow though. We needed to leave time for editing before the Saturday evening release. A thought occurred to me.

  “Chad, you negotiated pre-approval for the shows about the dairy specifically, right?”

  “Yeah, they get to review whatever we film on the farm.”

  I winced, “Including the unboxing video for Saturday?”

  “Oh, shit, I’m not sure if they’ll want to see that first. Um, I’ll call Jane. She’s the one who handles publicity and paperwork stuff. We never got around to reshooting the actual unboxing take that I screwed up the zoom on, huh?”

  “We need to get it today or tomorrow at the latest for me to get it edited in time to upload Saturday. If they want to do a quick screening Saturday afternoon, I can make that work. Otherwise we can cut the segment in the barn and just use the GhostCam review you and I filmed inside Vannessa.”

  “The benefits of taking your studio on wheels, huh?” Chad quipped. “I should have stayed on top of this situation. I’m sorry. I’ll explain the where we’re at and see what Jane says about waiving the review clause for the unboxing video. If she won’t budge, we can roll the unboxing footage into the site history episode we’re working on for next week, right? I’ve seen you do that before.”

  “No worries, we can make either option work. But, yeah. If you could call now, that would ease my mind.”

  “On it,” Chad pulled out his phone and dialed just as Leon pulled up to park his pickup truck next to Vannessa. I went over to greet Leon, confident that Chad could fix the problem. He had a way of doing that.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Chad

  Returning to the barn to film retakes for the unboxing video should have been easy. I’d marked the spot where Daniel positioned the camera in case we needed to do retakes, so that part was simple enough.