by Reyna Favis
“How are you feeling?” I leaned on the cold railings surrounding the bed as I looked him over. Joel had an abrasion that was darkening into a really standout bruise along his right cheek and temple. More concerning, he was wearing a heart monitor tucked into the front pocket of a blue standard issue hospital gown. The wires crept from the pocket over the neckline of the gown and disappeared under the fabric.
“Not too bad, everything considered,” Joel answered. “They’re keeping me overnight just as a precaution.”
“What exactly happened?” Cam asked. His brow was creased with worry and mirrored my own feelings.
Joel cast a glance towards his roommate and lowered his voice. “The shit really hit the fan today. Whatever you guys did last night riled things up in the house.” Cam and I both winced. Anything that Lucas unleashed in the house with his shenanigans wasn’t really our doing, but we felt responsible nonetheless. Lucas was really starting to grate on my last nerve and I was going to give him an earful the next time I saw him.
“I was the first one at the site,” Joel continued. “I thought it would be safe to work inside by myself after you guys had been through the place.” He gave us a slightly accusatory look before going on with the story. “The house felt really cold again and that should have tipped me off. I was trying to ignore it because we got that deadline to move the family in, so I started mounting the chair lift to the stairs, but it just kept getting colder and colder. I was hell bent on working through it, but then the stench started up and that was hard to ignore. I was about to take a break when I saw a shadow out of the corner of my eye. Nothing too bad, just something flitting across a wall.” As he said this, Zackie lifted her nose towards the door and someone who belonged in the morgue walk by and continued down the hall. Tugging on her lead, Zackie pulled Cam out the door.
“Sorry, I’ll be right back,” Cam said as he stumbled after her.
“What’s that all about?” Joel asked.
“I think there’s someone they know who walked by,” I improvised. “Please go on. What happened after you saw the shadow?”
“Nothing much at first. I went and I propped the door open to get some fresh air in the house. I was just standing in the doorway taking a smoke, when something went flying and hit me in the head. I went down and then… and then…” Joel rubbed the tender flesh on his temple as he tried to remember what happened next. “I think it was the tools that it threw. It was something heavy... I kind of remember the sheetrock on the wall near me getting wrecked. The guys found me outside. My head was bleeding, so they called 911. I must have dragged myself out of there before I passed out.”
Cam and Zackie reappeared and came to the bedside. “What did I miss?” Cam asked.
“There was some poltergeist activity,” I said. “Joel got hit by a flying tool. The crew found him and got him to the emergency room.”
“I should have been good to go,” Joel said. “It was just a thump to the head, after all. I guess the stress had got to me and my chest started to hurt while I was waiting to see a doctor. That pushed me straight to the front of the line and I ended up here.” Joel waved his hands expansively at the hospital room. “My dogs okay?” he asked after a pause. “If they don’t let me out tomorrow, I’m going to need you to take care of them until I get out.”
“Heckle and Jeckle are fine,” I said. “Don’t worry about them. I’ll walk and feed them until you’re back home.” I looked at my feet and said, “I’m really sorry you got hurt, Joel. That shouldn’t have happened.”
“Naaah,” he said waving his hand dismissively at me. Ever the tough guy, Joel said, “I’ve had worse.” As a sign of trust that warmed my heart, he followed up with, “You guys gotta keep working on that house. They always blame the contractor when things get behind schedule and I got a reputation to uphold. Do your job, so I can do mine. Deal?”
Cam and I shook his hand and agreed that we would not give up.
# # #
Heading towards the elevator after wishing Joel a good night’s sleep, Cam was again yanked along as Zackie suddenly changed direction towards a door leading to the stairway. We followed her down two flights of stairs and into another ward before she slowed in front of one of the rooms. Glancing in, I saw a pale woman. Her head was bald and she lacked both eye lashes and eyebrows. Stark blue veins were clearly visible around her temples through nearly translucent skin. She was lying limply in the bed with her eyes half closed and a man was holding her hand as he leaned against the safety rails.
“I’ll get you some ice chips,” I heard him say as he turned from the bed and moved to the doorway.
He was not wearing the eyeliner or the Goth clothes and it took me a moment to identify him. “Lucas,” I said as I recognized him. He looked up and at first, I don’t think he saw me. He was disoriented and had a look of abject misery etched into his face. As soon as he recognized me, his eyes hardened.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded looking from me to Cam. “This is private. You need to leave.” He planted himself solidly in the doorway, protectively blocking our view of the woman.
Cam and I stood dumbfounded, not knowing how to respond to his hostility under these circumstances. Like deer caught in the headlights, we continued to stand there frozen for another beat as Lucas glared at us. Zackie finally ended the spell by grabbing the lead with her teeth and freeing it from Cam’s grip. She pushed past Lucas, entered the room and went straight to the woman’s bedside.
Lucas was first surprised, but then furious. “You get that dog out of here!” he hissed at us. “Can’t you see how fragile she is?”
As Lucas stormed towards Zackie intent on grabbing her collar, Zackie balanced her front paws on the edge of the bed and shoved her nose under the rails and into the woman’s hand. The woman started and looked up to see the source of this new sensation. Seeing the dog, she smiled and gently touched Zackie’s head.
“No, please Lucas, let the dog stay,” the woman whispered. Lucas immediately dropped his hand and stepped back. “Would you please get me some ice chips?” she asked him.
“Okay, Hannah. Just be careful with that dog,” Lucas said as he inched towards the door, his eyes locked on Zackie. Grabbing Cam by the arm before he went through the door, he said, “You stay here and keep an eye on that dog. Don’t let it hurt her.”
Cam nodded and put his back against the wall, staying in the room as requested, but staying out of the way. After a moment of standing there awkwardly, I followed Lucas down the hall to the ice machine to apologize to him. I found him near the machine leaning with his back against the wall and his face in his hands. Hearing me approach, he looked up and I could see how exhausted he was. Lucas was a different person when he wasn’t dressed for ghost hunting. He was just a guy with a huge burden to carry and, at the moment, all the fight had gone out of him.
“She’s the reason I do it,” he said to me.
“Do what?” I asked.
“The show. I do the show even though it’s a load of bullshit.” He scrubbed his face again and then looked at me. He was so tired. “I was trained as a real scientist, you know. I have a Ph.D. in pharmacology. I’ll never be able to work in that field after this show ends. I’ve lost all credibility.”
“But you do the show because of Hannah?” I prompted.
“The drug regimen she’s on is experimental. The insurance company won’t pay for it. She’s failed every other course of chemotherapy they tried.” He sighed and a tear trickled from his eye. “The show pays for her treatment. I have to keep the ratings up no matter what or she’s going to die.” He looked at me with desperation in his eyes. “The drugs are helping. I know they’re helping.” I heard the plea in his voice and then he sobbed, “She’s my wife… I can’t lose her.” Lucas buried his face in his hands and wept.
I touched his shoulder and tried to comfort him. Lucas didn’t want comfort. He wanted me to confirm what he said, that she was going to get better. With all my heart, I
wanted to give him these reassurances, but I thought about how Zackie went straight to Hannah. I was sure that Hannah already belonged to her, but I could not tell this to Lucas. I was unable to lie and I could not tell the truth. Instead, I did the best I could. I grabbed some paper towels from the counter near the ice machine and handed them to Lucas and then looked for a way to give him a moment to regain his composure. Turning towards the ice machine, I took a Styrofoam cup and placed it under the dispenser. Keeping my eyes on the machine to give Lucas some privacy, I pushed the button for chipped ice and filled the cup. When I turned back, he was almost back to normal and I handed him the cup. He nodded his thanks and walked down the hall back to his wife.
I followed slowly as I thought about what Lucas had told me. By the time I reached the room, I still had come to no conclusions, other than that I needed to talk to Cam about it. Zackie was now on the bed lying close to Hannah, who lay quietly with her eyes closed. Lucas stood near the nightstand where he had deposited the cup of ice. His mouth was set in a thin line and his arms were crossed, but because Hannah had her arms wrapped around the dog, he said nothing. Glowering at Cam, he shot his eyes from the dog in the bed to the would-be handler. Cam shrugged his shoulders, dismissing the silent accusation and did nothing to remove the dog. Under different circumstances, the pantomime would have been amusing.
“What’s her name?” Hannah asked, her eyes fluttering open to half mast.
“She’s called Zackie,” Cam answered.
“I like Zackie,” she murmured. “Will you let her visit me sometimes?”
Cam looked at Lucas and said nothing, only raised his eyebrows. Lucas closed his eyes and exhaled briefly. At last, decision made, Lucas spoke up. “Sure, Hannah. Zackie will come to see you. How about you get some rest now?”
“Okay,” she said and closed her eyes again. After a few minutes, her breathing became regular and her arms went limp. Zackie slowly eased herself up and then gracefully moved from the bed without disturbing her.
We all stepped into the hallway and Lucas drew the door partially closed behind him. He motioned towards a lounge at the end of the hall and we quietly followed him to the collection of comfortable chairs and sofas. Lucas collapsed into a chair. Hunching forward, elbows on his knees and his hands folded in front of him, he stared at the ground and avoided looking at us for a moment. Finally, he turned his gaze up as we took seats on the couch opposite him.
“Will you come back with Zackie? For Hannah?” he asked, a tremor in his voice and his eyes pleading. “You have absolutely no reason to do anything for me after how I treated you….”
“Of course we’ll come back,” I interrupted him.
Cam nodded his ascent. “Hannah told me that your show pays for her treatment. I know this is not your chosen profession.”
A muscle in Lucas’ jaw twitched and he looked steadily at Cam before replying. “It’s not a sacrifice.”
It was Cam’s turn to look away. “All I’m saying is that I understand why you aired the film clip. Now that the reasons for your actions are clear, I’d like to offer to help.”
My eyes widened a little at this proposal. “What are you saying, Cam?” I asked slowly. It was all well and good for Cam to go public, but my family could not be given a way to find me. I might have been thinking along the same lines myself earlier, but things were moving a bit too fast suddenly.
“What I’m saying is that we can allow Lucas to film us, provided that he distorts our voices and obscures our faces. We can’t have people know our identities.” I breathed a small sigh of relief at this requirement. Cam turned to Lucas and asked, “Will you agree to that, Lucas?”
Lucas considered the plan for a moment and then nodded. “This could work in our favor. The public might be drawn in by the idea of mystery psychics. Whatever you are doing, it is active and attention-grabbing and will keep people watching. I think the format of the show has gotten stale and something new like this could perk people’s interest again.” He paused and glanced at each of us before saying, “I have some ground rules too, if this is going to work. I have no right to ask, since you’re both doing this out of kindness, but I could not accept your generosity without getting agreement on this.”
“Go ahead and ask,” Cam said. “We need to know now if this is at all feasible.”
“I know you two believe that you are somehow interacting with the great beyond. You know that I do not believe in any of it.” We both agreed that this was true, so Lucas went on. “I feel strongly that the viewers be told only the objective truth. There will be a multitude of interpretations of what is seen on the screen and I don’t want to lie to people by giving them a single, self-serving analysis of the data. It would be so easy to say that every anomaly is attributable to a ghost. The viewers might eat that up. I would know better. You can’t control for everything and all sorts of noise in the environment could distort a reading….” He let his thoughts hang for a moment. Opening his hands, he said, “I just don’t want to lie. That’s important to me.”
“Take the footage and use it however you see fit,” I said. “You be the narrator and interpreter of events. It’s maybe best all around if what we do can never be concretely pinned down to something paranormal.”
“Okay, looks like we’re on to something,” Lucas said. “I’ll see about getting you guys some kind of salary for your efforts. It won’t be anything much, since the budget has already been set.”
“We weren’t expecting compensation, but I’m certainly not going to turn it down. Something is always better than nothing,” I quipped with a huge smile on my face. With zero expectations for pay, this was a windfall and might help ease some of the constant strain of trying to make ends meet.
Cam looked thoughtful. For a moment, I thought that he was going to decline, but eventually he said, “That’s very generous of you.”
Lucas lowered his eyes, maybe still feeling guilty for unauthorized use of the film footage. “Let’s start with the Changewater case.”
“We should probably fill you in on recent events,” I offered as I thought about Joel. “Something happened in the house this morning.” Just as I was about to say more, my stomach grumbled like a grizzly bear coming out of hibernation, so I suggested we grab some dinner and talk.
CHAPTER 9
“I think we both know that helping Lucas won’t save her,” I said as I took a big gulp of my beverage. To soothe my caffeine and sugar jones, I had ordered a large coke while we waited for Lucas to show up. He had wanted to make a last check on Hannah before leaving the hospital. If it weren’t for us, he probably would have stayed there all night watching her sleep.
“Yes…. But Lucas needs saving. He’s on his last legs,” Cam said. Sipping his coffee, he added, “Let’s at least take the burden of the show off of him.”
“Sorry I kept you waiting,” Lucas said as he approached the table. He pulled out a chair from the small round table and sat down heavily. His face was drawn with fatigue and he gave my coke a look of longing.
We made small talk after the waitress took our orders. Once the food arrived, there was no time for discussion as I tucked in and filled my belly with fries and a cheeseburger slathered in ketchup. Lucas, unfamiliar with my eating habits, paused in the middle of his meal to gawk. At some point, he must have decided that staring was rude, cast his eyes to his own food and resisted looking back until the meal was finished. I was simply too starved to be embarrassed.
Cam automatically handed me a pile of napkins as he began telling Lucas about Joel’s experience. “What went on in the house last night, Lucas?” he asked. “You didn’t… provoke the spirits, did you?” Cam’s mouth turned down as he posed the question.
A faint smile tugged at Lucas’ mouth and he immediately suppressed it. Was he amused at Cam’s distress at taunting something that did not exist, but he wanted to be polite? Lucas paused for a beat and then said, “No, that wouldn’t make good television. The viewers would think we were
harassing a little girl. It wouldn’t play well, so we just went from room to room taking instrument readings and trying to record EVPs.” I nodded to myself. Lucas was sticking to the facts from his perspective and not drawing attention to the differences in our opinions. After he drained his coke, he asked, “Are you sure Joel didn’t just get spooked by something and hit his head in a panic to get out?”
“No, that wouldn’t be like Joel,” I answered. “He’s a tough guy. He doesn’t spook easily. I once saw him at a dog park step between his labs and a huge, really nasty dog that was trying to pick a fight. The other dog had its teeth bared and hackles up, but Joel didn’t flinch.”
“We were told that the flying tools destroyed the sheetrock near the front door. We can check it out to make sure Joel remembered this accurately. Any damage to the wall could not be attributed to just his imagination,” Cam added. Lucas just shrugged his shoulders, obviously not convinced by either of our statements, but not willing to debate the matter. He was probably just cataloging our reports, so he could script the next show in an enticing way.
“You might want to film the two graves we found last night,” I said to give him some fodder.
At this, he perked up and tilting his head, he said to me, “Do tell…” So, I told. He was intrigued by the hanged men, but felt that the man in the pit could not be adequately substantiated in some way for the audience. Overall, I thought that he was accepting our impressions and observations as another piece of data, but it was clear that he was having trouble giving much weight to this type of evidence.