~IV~
During the intervening week, Scotty intercepted a small group of trespassers who lost themselves on the grounds. As he was doing his walk about to make sure the back gate had been locked, he found two men and a woman standing by the back gate trying to decide whether they could risk the climb. Scotty and his partner didn’t know anyone was still on the grounds, since there were no events and the parking lots were empty. After some discussion about whether he should notify his boss and call the police, Scotty later told Gwen he asked them to tell him the real reason they were there and see if that didn’t convince him not to call the cops. The bald one offered to bribe him, but only had $5 in his wallet. Not that Scotty wanted a bribe. The high-talking blonde chick spoke to her companions. Scotty did a great Fran Drescher impression of the girl’s voice, “Youse guys show him da footage.”
“I thought, crikey, they were shooting another porno in Cottage B again,” Scotty snickered as he told Gwen the next day while they made lunch. When Scotty started working at Snug Harbor, one of his coworkers indoctrinated him into the fold by handing him an unmarked dvd, instructing him to pop it in the machine in the rec center just before he locked up the place, and give it a view. He also told Scotty not to get it “sticky.” Not knowing what the hell that meant, Scotty did as he had been instructed, to discover the unmarked disc contained the grainy footage of an old porno, shot in the 70’s by way of the ‘fros and bell bottoms. After hastily telling her he didn’t watch the whole thing, Scotty noted that it had been shot in Cottage B. The worst part, he had his suspicions that the decrepit, stained and burn marked mattress on the floor in one of the upstairs bedrooms was the same one in the video... which was disturbing because until a few months before Scotty was hired, that Cottage had served as residence for some artist or author or friend of some Snug Harbor muckety-muck.
“It wan’t another porn, Gwen,” he said in a quiet, mystified way as he juiced lemons for a vinaigrette. “You’ll have to see it, but...they caught a ghost.”
“On camera?” she asked over a plate of arugula and octopus salad that would make the judges on Chopped proud.
“No, on their head. Of course on camera. That was the footage. Shit, I thought you’d be excited after you told me about getting groped in the bathroom by some dude who wasn’t there.”
“I wasn’t groped, you retard. I imagined it.”
“Like you imagined it trying to force the door open, from the other side? Like you imagined it slapping you in the face as you came back to the office? Like you imagined that dude at the tour? Seriously, Gwen? I thought you’d be interested. You’ve been telling me about all this shit happening and now there’s a group that’s inviting us to investigate—”
“They did what now?” She spun around so fast, she wound up dropping several leaves of arugula and one olive oil drenched tentacle on top of the little tiger-striped cat slinking around Gwen’s ankles. Monkey skittered away, arugula plastered on her head, hissing and shaking her hind legs like a deranged jack rabbit, while their black and white tuxedo Bean hastily scarfed the dropped tentacle.
“Invited us to do an investigation with them next weekend. They have the gear no one in their right minds would be able to afford. The footage was the thermal image of an entity they caught in Cottage B. They had been at Snug a few times before, once during the day and one other time at night. Since I never saw them before, it must’ve been when I was off. They could get in such serious shit though because they jimmied the back door to Cottage B open. The day shift keeps forgetting to lock it. They think it’s locked, but it’s just stuck. These guys realized it was unlocked and they hunkered down in there with their gear. Two of them are brothers, Kenny and Lou, and Lou’s wife, Crystal. I think their mother died or something and left them a boatload of cash. Don’t know, but they bought a whole bunch of stuff pretty much on a whim. They claimed that they did a few group investigations with some other local groups, but that could just be BS. The guy Lou said he worked with someone who knew the Warrens. Again I think it’s bull, but this might be fun.”
“Fun? It’s not a trip to the circus,” she turned back to take out her irritation slicing a baguette.
“And here I thought you were afraid of clowns,” he laughed, dressing the salad with his special garlic-lemon dressing.
“You think it would be fun doing what, forcing dead people to have a chat with you?”
“Hey, I thought you might find it fun. You’ve been having all this shit happen, fucking getting slapped? For all you know that dick in the Lincoln hat could’ve caused your seizure.”
“I don’t know if he did. But, why would speaking to the dead or trying to force them on camera be a fun thing to do? It’s disrespectful.”
“What the hell did you go to that ghost tour for, then?” He sat at the table, pulling over his plate and tossing around his food before she sat down.
“Curiosity. I want to know, but this is not a game.” She sat down, pouring a glass of homemade iced tea.
“Fine. You stay home. I’ll be at work anyway. It’s no skin off my nose if they come in and mess around. No one will be there but me. Steve’s off, so I’ll be by myself. It will be quiet and I thought you’d want to come, especially after last weekend.”
“Oh, I am coming. I told you, I want to know. It’s just not a game playing with the dead. Especially when they curse at you in Dutch.”
~V~
Gwen heard Crystal’s voice coming from one of the disused storage rooms off the main hall, as loud and irritating as ever. “We’re here to speak with you. Tell us your name.”
It struck Gwen as more than strange that this trio of novices, people who could pretty much count the number of “ghost hunts” they went on on one hand, had some equipment that cost more than Scotty’s car. It was even stranger that they never asked questions. No, strange wasn’t right. It was insulting that they never asked questions. Whenever they settled in to do an E.V.P session, in Gwen’s opinion they made demands. Tell us your name. Tell us when you died. Tell us... tell us... tell us.
Gwen knew if she was dead, she certainly wouldn’t tell them anything. She was alive and she really didn’t tell them much of anything as it was and this was maybe the fifth time she had gone to investigate with them. Neither Gwen nor Scotty really knew these people and it wasn’t like they all hung out and ate pancakes together. He looked at this all as a fascinating distraction from work. He had a passing interest in the concept hunting for ghosts, and Gwen supposed it was on his bucket list. She did remember him telling her that when he was a kid he did try on the nickname Egon for a while. It didn’t go over well and his brothers started calling him Slimer instead. On occasion Gwen and Scotty would tune into some of the better, documentary style paranormal programs, but never were fans of those folks who would run around yelling at each other in the dark. Despite Gwen’s own experience with seeing people that weren’t visible to the naked eye, she wasn’t as attracted to the idea of sitting around recording someone else’s afterlife. She saw it as inherently disrespectful. She didn’t want to offend Scotty or have an argument with the man that would at some point be her husband over something as bizarre as the dead.
As Gwen sat on the floor, looking over the tops of her glasses, she started rubbing her neck a bit to alleviate the cramping. None of the team members noticed that she hadn’t moved in more than a half hour. Scotty, in his dark security gear with his long hair tucked under his uniform cap, was getting a lesson in how to use a tri-field meter from Lou. Meanwhile, Kenny stood on the opposite side of the hallway, his hands floating over the walls in a way that was eerily reminiscent of The Stupendous Yappi. Kenny was wearing the requisite black turtleneck and blazer, with his long, dark hair pulled into a neat ponytail. He didn’t have the waggling eyebrows though.
She didn’t expect them to take much notice of her, especially since she was sort of a background member of the team. That first night the trio came to Snug, Scotty showed them around where he c
ould, and she tagged along. They didn’t do much more than walk around the music hall and peek in the memorial chapel across the way. It was more of an urban exploring than an investigation, but Gwen was okay with that. When they went up the rickety, twisting staircase to look at the space above the stage in the music hall, Gwen kept her mouth solidly shut in spite of her seeing the hollow forms of a young man and woman dressed in a bright rose pink gown with black stripes having a howling row around and through the members of the team. Scotty may have sensed that she saw something because he left her alone, figuring she’d tell him later—which she did. It was more than a little disturbing to see the spectral argument culminate in the young man with violently red hair leap through Crystal to slash across the throat of the ghostly woman with a wicked little rigging knife he had secreted up his sleeve. As Gwen saw the woman’s throat cut, she got the superimposed image of the woman singing on the stage below. After the young sailor killed the singer, he tossed a rope over one of the beams criss-crossing the odd little attic. The spirits weren’t as vivid as Stefan’s or Jimmi’s had been. They were imprints, scraps, like a film negative. Gwen couldn’t communicate with them and they had no awareness to speak of.
The only thing the trio did in that attic was to relay a story they had heard about a woman committing suicide over the stage by hanging herself. They attempted yet another of their EVP sessions there, but became restless after 15 minutes. Crystal complained that since the floor was a series of beams, she couldn’t sit down without risking falling through. Gwen knew the real reason the petite blonde didn’t want to stay in the attic had nothing to do with a phantom murder having been committed around her, but with her shoes. Crystal insisted, regardless of where the group might be investigating, on wearing the worst possible footwear. Each time Gwen went on an investigation with the group, Crystal wore something with at least a three inch heel, from platform sneakers to stiletto heeled booties. Gwen herself wasn’t a tall person by any means, but Crystal had a slightly dwarf-like stature and not as in someone with dwarfism. Crystal had wide shoulders and man-hands that would charm a Dwarf of the Iron Hills. In order to make up for her stodgy shortness, Crystal compensated with her footgear. Crystal, in a pair of ridiculous, gold wedge heeled mock Converse, began stomping down the narrow stairs before anyone got a chance to contradict her desire to leave “NOW.” Gwen was glad, in a way, because she didn’t want to get any more flashes of the embittered lovers’ story with this trio around. Gwen kept the story of the jilted redhead and the murdered singer to herself. Gwen didn’t want their trauma violated by Crystal’s demands. Crystal was definitely the team-leader and Lou backed her up completely. Kenny just followed.
As they all left the music hall, Crystal launched into an explanation of the team’s rules as they walked down Chapel Lane toward front of campus, which in and of itself was fine. The problem was, Crystal herself never abided by them.
Rule number 1: no perfume.
“When ya wear perfume,” Crystal said, snapping her gum, tossing around her heavily styled, heavily scented blonde hair, “Ya skew the evidence. Ya might think ya getting’ a dis-em-bodied spirit.” Crystal accentuated each syllable.
Gwen wasn’t sure if that was for emphasis, to make Gwen squee just a little at the idea of a disembodied spirit, or because Crystal couldn’t remember what the word was or what it meant so she had to sound it out a bit. Gwen thought it was the latter because Gwen sort of thought the whole concept of a spirit or entity more than implied that it was disembodied.
“But, all you is getting’ is just a whiff of Snooki or Paris.”
Gwen wasn’t sure if Crystal meant the city or the charlatan heiress masquerading as a genuine celebrity. Despite never having watched an episode of Jersey Shore, Gwen unfortunately knew that reference. Gwen had to stand a pace away from Crystal because the overpowering smell of perfume made Gwen’s head pound with sugary floral notes.
Rule number 2: when you make a noise announce it.
“If you sneeze, laugh, or whispa, you got to say that you did it. If you laugh, announce it to the recorda. Crystal laughing. Ya know? That way if we hear a giggle, we know who did it.”
She also failed to mention a subsidiary rule, no clacking your gum, or, no gum, period. That was always broken since Crystal was never ever without a hunking wad of nicotine gum in her maw.
Rule number 3: proof not puff.
“We ain’t into the whole physic thing.”
Gwen knew Crystal did not mean prune juice. So she kept quiet and listened.
Crystal continued, “Ya know, them folks who see dead things and hear ghosts and look for vibes and stuff.”
Gwen could not contain herself, “Like you guys?”
Crystal stopped walking down Chapel Lane, snapping her gum in irritation. “Scuse me?”
“Well,” Gwen redacted a little. “I mean, you guys get evidence, you do your EVPs, so I’m not sure what you mean exactly by vibes. If you look for a ghost, then it’s sort of implied that you are looking to see something that’s dead. When you try to record an EVP, then aren’t you hearing ghosts? But, I don’t know if I follow what you mean.”
“Physics. People who see what’s not there, like lotto numbers and shit?”
Lou interrupted as he walked by, “Babe, you mean psychics. A physic is what your mom used to give you when you had the problems with your tum-tum.”
Gwen shot an exasperated look at Scotty’s happy smiling face and she mouthed, fun?
“So we ain’t into any of that scene, so without gettin’ it on camera, it ain’t worth oua time.” Crystal made an almost audible harumph, snapped her gum, and caught up to her husband.
Gwen had resolved not to come back to do anything with them. She didn’t like Crystal’s attitude, and didn’t feel comfortable in telling them about her experiences. But, the trio was back two nights later to investigate Cottage B. Scotty had had his reservations in showing the group around after Gwen told him about her own sentiments, but his partner Steve had expressed interest in coming to see what it all was about. Steve and his son watched just about every paranormal show on television and had been truly bummed he wasn’t able to pop into the trio’s investigations until now. He wasn’t working during their first visit and was due to be working his regular shift when the group planned on checking out Cottage B. But, much to his disappointment and Scotty’s irritation, Steve called out sick for the overnight shift of second investigation. On those days, Scotty was working solo.
Scotty didn’t want to be stuck with the trio by himself, so he convinced Gwen to give them another try. He also figured it was a good opportunity to really see some of that expensive tech in action. “When’s the next time you’ll be able to use one of those thermal cams, Gwen? We’ll give them a shot and if it’s the same shit, then you come when you want on your own. You, me, and Steve can do our own investigating. We’ve got the digital recorder you used in school. We don’t need all that expensive stuff to do our own thing. And, if you find yourself talking to any of the spirits, we won’t give you a physic.”
Reluctantly, she agreed. That was the night Gwen met Jimmi for the first time. Jimmi knocked over one of the trio’s expensive cameras. Before the camera went over, he had kicked over three bowling pins Gwen herself got the idea to set up in the upstairs room. She had found them in a closet and had thought it would be an interesting point of interaction. Crystal was suspicious, but they thought it wouldn’t hurt. The camera had been filming the pins. It caught the pins go over individually, and as the camera went over, a distinct child’s laugh was heard.
Meeting Jimmi and having something caught on camera was exhilarating. Gwen was feeling a little more comfortable, not with the group, but in her instincts and with the place. She thought that being respectful and waiting for the spirits to speak to her on their terms, instead of demanding that they speak to her on the team’s terms, wasn’t somehow an affront to the dead. She tried to become more open to actually hearing them tell their
stories instead of her getting flashes like an uninvited movie in her head. When they transmitted their story to her, or directly spoke, it made more sense to her. With Jimmi—and Stefan, his counterpart—it was infinitely easier to understand who they were and what their story was because it wasn’t forced into Gwen’s head in bits and pieces that moved faster than the speed of light. When she got home and began Googling the idea of communicating with the dead, something she hadn’t really done before because she got way too many freaky articles about possession and exorcisms and she so was not having any of that, she found a term that she had never heard before: channeling. Initially, when she heard the word channel she thought television. As she read, she came to understand it was the means by which a medium allowed a spirit to speak or in a sense broadcast that spirit’s story through that medium. Gwen didn’t like the idea of relinquishing control of her own self to the spirit of some unknown dead person, but she was curious about trying to open herself up more to listening, to permitting a ghost to speak to her. She wasn’t really keen on being someone who conducted séances and sat across the table from the relatives of the dearly departed, but she was drawn to the idea of learning a person’s history from them literally beyond the grave. It reminded her of when her mother used to sit and reminisce about her own childhood, or when her father’s mother would relay stories about her parents coming to the United States. It was like the History Channel but directly from the mouths of the people who lived it.
When the trio was back again a few days after that, back in Cottage B, Gwen decided to tag along again. Being quiet and keeping completely to herself helped her become almost invisible to Crystal and the team. Being invisible, she was allowed to do her own silent investigation. The next time in Cottage B, Gwen made the connection between Stefan and Jimmi. She thought that perhaps, that time she would feel more confident in telling the group about her some of experiences in a last ditch attempt, but after Kenny proclaimed that the basement to Cottage B was a doorway into a demonic dimension-- and there was a bit of a minor hysterical fit between Lou and Kenny about the whole “proof not puff” rule-- Gwen thought it wasn’t a good time. While the two men argued, Gwen had sat on the floor of Cottage B with her back to the fireplace, and to Stefan who stood mumbling profanities, both in Dutch and English.
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