by scifiguy3553
Officially named Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, it was always St. Louis International to many locals. Even more colloquial, the Airport. Edan parked his SUV in the employee-designated area and made his way to the maintenance section of the Airport. He barely got a chance to get his cup of coffee from one of the Airport's venders when he saw Duncan Holt, top manager of the maintenance division, briskly walk his way to him from across one of the concourse. Rotund, in his sixties, and clad in that ubiquitous khakis and polo shirt, Duncan looked pretty intense.
“Heard about one of the planes last night,” Duncan said right away. It was nothing personal. Even when there was not an emergency that was just the way he was.
“Yeah, I was there,” Edan quipped as they both started walking down the same concourse to get to the maintenance office.
“I'm telling you, Edan, buddy, these airline companies are trying to push out these bigger planes too fast! All that competition with the Europeans to see who can have the biggest boat in the air!”
The airport was not at its peak business cycle at the time, so it was easy for the two men to strut their way through in good time.
“Yeah, well, you know how I feel about the industry,” Edan said. “I still say they should nationalize those airliners and let Washington run them!”
“Not this Commie-crap again, Edan! Come on, man; you've been in management for what, over three years now?”
“I'm a supervisor...technically, I'm not management. Hey, once a union worker, always a union worker! Besides, it worked for Detroit; why not the airline industry? After things got better, the Feds got out of the car industry and let Detroit run its course.”
Edan's boss actually nodded at his point. They were diametrically opposite in politics, but they were good friends, even outside of work.
“So, how much longer on the other plane before we can get it out of Six, Twenty-Four,” Duncan asked as they briefly stopped. They were about to go their separate ways at another concourse.
Edan thought for a few seconds, knowing the importance of getting a marooned airline jet off one of the airport's runway! Even if it was parked by the facilities. “With those couple of extra guys you got me yesterday; we already did a trouble-shoot last night...I'd say by the end of first shift.”
Duncan gave a knowing nod to his subordinate and friend, then gave him a parting pat on one of Edan's shoulders and he went down the other concourse.
It was not even five minutes after Edan had talked with Duncan when he heard a page over the intercom system for him. He was asked to go to the circulation desk.
“Are you kidding me,” he said aloud, but not quite so loud that others walking the airport could hear him.
By the time Edan made it to the circulation desk, the activity at Lambert-St. Louis had picked up a bit. This time Edan had to dodge a few passengers and their luggage. “So, what's up, Marie,” he asked the young woman behind the computer.
But before she could respond, a tall, elderly man, dressed formally in a suit and tie with a vest, walked up to Edan with an intense face. His medium-length, white beard gave him a Hemingway look.
“Mr. Epp, I'm Dr. Turnov...” The older man gave Edan a look as if he should know who he was. But Edan merely stared at him. “Paul Turnov. You and your wife had recently bought my former house on Emily Street.”
“Oh, of course,” Edan said, feeling more relaxed. “I'm sorry I didn't recognize you, Dr. Turnov. Our real estate agent said that you were in Slovakia while we were making the transaction, so we never got a chance to meet...” Edan noted that his countenance did not lighten. His impression of Turnov was one of those highly educated and well-traveled Americans that could pass as European. “Is, is there a problem? We've already signed the paperwork and did our first payments.”
Dr. Turnov studied him for a few seconds. “I'm sorry to come to your employment, Mr. Epp, but I believe you and I both know that you have something that belongs to me.”
Now Dr. Turnov was really starting to worry Edan. “Well, like I said, my wife and I already completed the transaction—“
“Not the house, Mr. Epp; the board!”
Edan froze. First, because he still did not understand what he was referring to. But then it hit him!
“Yes, Mr. Epp,” Dr. Turnov said in an almost whisper. “Don't even try to deny it. You shoved it into one of my drawers.”
Now Edan's eyes widen. He looked around the airport and stepped up closer to the older man. “You had a hidden camera?”
“I've been a victim of theft a few times, Mr. Epp. You learn not to trust people after so long...the board, please!”
“Well, I hope you have a receipt for that camera of yours, Doctor, because it's not working right! Ok; I tucked your stupid mojo-board in with some socks. But I never took it with us out of the house! Your camera should—“
“I have your son on record taking it.”
Edan's eyes were all over the place. Dr. Turnov was watching him with steely eyes. “Well...that makes sense...that explains everything.”
“Explains what, Mr. Epp?”
Edan's eyes cut to Turnov, wondering within himself. “I have a plane that I'm in charge of getting off the ground, Doctor. If I have time for a five-minute lunch break I'll call my wife and ask her to get it from my son and she could deliver it to you...it's the best I can do under the circumstances.” Edan was about to turn to head back to the maintenance section.
Now it was Dr. Turnov's turn to give a stare. “I suggest you take your cell phone and call her right now, Mr. Epp.”
Edan turned on his heel and nearly rushed up to the old man and met his stare. “Is that a threat, old man?” Some of the workers behind the circulation desk were now watching the two men.
“No, Mr. Epp...I'm trying to save you and your family's lives!”
Sometimes it pays to have a friend as a boss. Duncan let Edan take the day off after Edan convinced him that it was a family emergency. With a stoic Dr. Turnov standing behind the scenes, no doubt it helped Edan's case. Besides, it was an international airport. Duncan was able to call in another shift supervisor to take Edan's spot, because the second plane had to be repaired and make room for other craft on the runway!
Edan and Doctor Turnov both agreed that Turnov should follow Edan from Lambert-St. Louis to the Epps' new home at Nineteenth and Emily. Edan had called April and explained his encounter at his job with the professor from Washington University. April was incensed! She had two clients at her beauty salon under hair-drying machines and one more waiting, but Edan explained to her it was important that the whole family meet at the new house after April took Dan to the old home and retrieve the ouija board.
April gave all three women at the salon a coupon for a free permanent for their next visit.
When April pulled up into the driveway at the Emily Street house, she saw Edan and the older gentleman standing apart from each other on the front lawn. Not even on the wraparound porch that had plenty of space! Indeed, why were they not in the house at all, April wondered.
Dan had the ouija board in his hands and a guilt
y face to go with it as he and his mother exited the mini-van. April stopped a few yards away from Dr. Turnov while she let Dan take responsibility of handing back the board to the professor. Whom took it without so much as a thank you—understandably. In one of his hands, he had a smart-notepad, she noticed.
“Ok,” April said with vinegar to the elder man, “you got your ouija board back. Now get out of our lives!”
“April,” Edan said to her; but it was not a scolding tone, she noticed. “While we were waiting for you two, we got a chance to talk...”
April was getting impatient. “And?”
Edan and Dr. Turnov both looked at Dan, which caused April's eyes to fall on him as well.
“I...I wanted to know why dad was so freaked out when he saw the board. So I took it from the drawer the first day we were here when you and dad weren't looking.”
“Ok...” April was still impatient.
“I've heard of a ouija board before, but I never knew what it was about. So I went online to research it, and...” He looked upon his father with teary eyes, then back at his mother. “I did a séance with Jeff and Phillip, at our old house when you and dad were at work!”
April actually started laughing, and without irony. Edan and Dr. Turnov were unmoving while Dan kept wiping tears from his face as he tried composing himself. “Oh, sweetheart...I thought you were going to tell me that you sacrificed animals or something! Danny, it's ok to be curious about some things, and what we call the Paranormal is one of those things in life we all have to learn about on our own. So long as you don't hurt anyone!” Again, she laughed with relief.
As April looked up from talking to Dan, she noticed how quiet the two men were. She blew out a sarcastic sigh.
“Edan, obviously you and I have had this conversation for years, so I know what to expect from you, hon...but, Doctor Turnov; a professor of Humanities at a university? You actually believe all that stuff about ghosts, hauntings...ouija boards?”
“May I show you something,” the professor simply asked.
April's eyes snapped over to Edan for consultation. Edan solemnly nodded and said nothing. “Ok,” she said with a shrug.
Now Dr. Turnov was using his high-tech tablet. He was swiping and punching icons briskly as he walked over to April and Dan. “I've already showed your husband, Mrs. Epp, but I really think you and Dan should see this...on my summers off from teaching, I do investigations of the paranormal. That's why I was in Slovakia a month ago. As part of my tools, I use a special application that was developed by a friend of mine out at MIT.”
He held one of his hands up for April and Dan to see. With his other hand, he took his tablet and placed it in front of his free hand. And on the screen was something like an X-ray image of his hand, but with far more details of his veins, bones, and flesh in live action! The mother and son both flinched with amazement and surprise. For the first time since he met the Epps, Dr. Turnov actually smiled.
“Don't worry; with this technology, there aren't any radiation you have to worry about. I use it to detect...hidden things in life.”
Again, April looked to Edan, but he kept his eyes on the professor as Turnov continued, keeping his hand moving in front of the tablet. “As an academic, I appreciate your skepticism, Mrs. Epp. But let me challenge you, that just as we all know that our bodies have internal organs underneath our skin, what about the organs in the world that are underneath the tangible order of the everyday?”
And with that statement, Dr. Turnov lowered his hand and did a slow, arcing sweep with the high-tech tablet of the Epps' new home...there were beings! Not alien, but not of this level of Earth, either. They looked human, mostly. Perhaps a trace of once being human? There were scores of them, and some flew around the house as if they were bats, while others glided—as if on skates. Some were idle, and, indeed, were watching the four of them standing a bit further away from the lawn of the Epps' new house.
The cell phones of the Epps and Dr. Turnov began to ring or vibrate as one, or more, of those creatures tried taunting them. Only, these beings had no need for technology, per se, to call the human's cell phones. April had now understood the call that Dan got the night before, and it disturbed her that one of these beings had not only communicated with her son, but they all had been among her family while they were moving in!
Dr. Turnov looked at each of them, while he disengaged the ringer to his cell phone, as did the Epps to their own cells. He lowered the tablet, then turned it off and faced the young family with a deeply sympathetic face.
“This is not all your fault, Dan,” he said to them, as they now bunched together as a family. “Some of them got here because of me! A few years ago, I was trying to prove a point to a friend of mine in a dare, and I brought that ouija board over from one of my trips in South America...like you, young man, I conducted a séance with some friends; here, at this house. It wasn't manifested right away, but...”
Turnov sighed heavily as he looked back at the house. With normal vision, it was completely normal. But they all knew differently, now.
“Now you see why I was moving! I thought that, may be, if I destroyed the board as I left the house, before another family moved in it would send them back!”
“But you couldn't because Danny took it before you could,” Edan said, non-accusatory.
Dr. Turnov silently nodded, but gave a subtle smile in his direction so that Dan would not take it hard. “Apparently, each time a séance is held, several of these beings slip into our world with some kind of period of time. I have to admit I'm still learning that portion of the paranormal myself. Even after all these years!”
“So what now,” April asked as she looked at the house. “Are they restricted to this particular house?”
“Given that I brought the ouija board over from South America and did the first séance here, I believe that to be the case. Note that when you and Dan were at your old house last night your son received a call on his phone, as opposed to an outright poltergeist at the old home.”
“Hold on a minute,” Edan said, his eyes wider with some alarm. “What if by destroying the board all you do is trap them here, on Emily Street? Instead of sending them back!”
Dr. Turnov was already nodding his head. “Yes, Mr. Epp, trust me I've thought of that. I've thought of demolishing the board by fire or crushing it somehow. But what if all that did was blow a hole so big that the portal would extend far beyond your house on Emily?”
None of them could answer that poignant question.
After a long period of thought on the matter, Dr. Turnov finally spoke up. “Mr. and Mrs Epp, whatever you have in that house, consider it lost. I am not going to risk destroying the ouija board and possibly populating society's level of existence with many more those beings!”
All three of the Epps nodded.
“In the meantime,” Dr. Turnov said as he walked over to his vehicle and placed his paranormal gear in on the passenger side, “I'm sure there are legal ways of bogging down a property so badly that it would never sell on the market...or, razing the house.”
“But others could always build on the land again,” April pointed out.
“Exactly,
” Turnov replied. “Which is why I'll figure something out to make this property and the house undesirable.”
The professor and the Epps started for their respective vehicles when Dan spoke up to all of them. “Make it a ghost story!”
All of the adults stopped where they were. “What's that,” Dr. Turnov asked.
“Well, it's kind of like, there's always that one house in every neighborhood that has a ghost story, and no one ever lives in it, ever...” Danny shrugged. “Just tell people that ghosts live there.”
~~the end~~
EBOOK TWO:
“The Literary Virus” by scifiguy3553. “The Literary Virus” was originally published by The Lincoln Underground, but has always been copyrighted to Joseth Moore; whom is scifiguy3553.
Factory worker Jeff Littleton shares a couple of artifacts with his co-workers. The aged paper & enigmatic script, which came from a US soldier from WWII, is far more than what it appears...
After one co-worker nearly dies after reading the artifact & a warning from another co-worker with experience, Jeff is left with the next logical step.