He'll be another casualty.
Travis started drowning six months ago.
I don't have the flashlight with me. I had handed it to Ricky just in case he felt the need to brain our confused client. Something tells me we're not done here, yet. And then I look up at the attic entrance.
Two more microphones to go.
I climb the creaking wooden stairs and see my little mics, their LED lights still glowing bright amber. I scoop up the first one and walk the long distance across the attic to the second mic. And then I get this overwhelming feeling that I shouldn't look up. It's the same intuitive gut feeling that I had not to look at the bed when I was in the master bedroom.
So, of course, I raise my eyes straight up. And that's when I see them.
Gatherers .
Tons of them.
This house is a freakin' hive.
The gatherers—or 'ramasseurs' as they're referred to in the voodoo texts—are the next step up from the spooks. Where the spooks usually travel in curious little packs, the gatherers work in twos. They have short stocky bodies with long, thin insect-like arms. Their fingers are bony and narrow, and they wield these long sharp knives. I'm not sure if the knives are actually an extension of their hands, or if they're tools of the soul collecting trade.
But here's what they do: Two of these gatherers, with their sharp knives, they cut open your chest, quite violently, and dig until they can get a grip on your soul. Us, over here in the Earth plane, we don't see this virtual soulectomy, but that's what's happening in the hospital when somebody refuses to die.
When the doctors say, he's fighting for his life! he really is. But not fighting against life or death. You fight with the gatherers for your soul. They've been commissioned to take you, forcefully, to the Land of Sorrows.
To Deadside.
Heaven and Hell and Purgatory have no use for you, so the gatherers get the nod. And that's it. Eventually, they win.
Above me, in this dark attic, they're seemingly lifeless, but I know better. Picture a cave of resting vampire bats. Imagine a sleeping hive of giant black hornets. Think, if you will, of a nest of the most horrible things you can imagine in your worst phobia and nightmares, and it won't come close to what is just a few feet above my head.
Creatures cast and carved out of shadows who's only point in this universe is to ravage the souls unwanted by the afterlife. Those without any faith, or of lukewarm belief.
And I know that these monsters are about to begin their work day. Just stopping for a quick nap. All that soul harvesting has got to make them tired.
And these scary bastards, they're my allies. My quiet, violent friends from the darkness. They don't need to gather my soul, they've already done that.
So I stuff the last microphone in the yellow nylon bag and I leave the attic.
When I get downstairs Ricky begins shutting off the cameras and loading them back into their appropriately stenciled bags. The house is dark, but I see orange and blue and red and yellow reflections racing and swirling across the furniture and walls. They get brighter and brighter, but there is no noise.
No sirens, no screeching tires. Thankfully, Billtruck had the presence of mind to warn the authorities against a loud approach.
And within minutes I hear a knock on the large oak front door. There's a hushed conversation between Ricky and several police officers. Travis awakens to several soft-spoken detectives. And then the silent circus begins. Teams of investigators, paramedics, firemen, and contaminate disposal workers enter the house.
Ricky, Ms. Josephine, and I, we're giving our statements. Trading business cards. And being thanked for our discretion in this delicate matter.
Turns out that Sophia—Travis's late wife—was a state senator's daughter. So, they'd appreciate if we didn't publicize this ordeal, nor our involvement in it. Ricky traded some future favors for our silence, and that was that.
We loaded-up our gear and hit the road.
17 minutes later . . .
None of us has uttered more than two words since we pulled away from 114 West Briargrove. But we're all asking ourselves the same questions. There are no good answers.
Ricky, he's actually driving sensibly and he turns to Ms. Josephine, “Did you know?”
“I 'ad my suspicions dis mornin', but I didn't want to scare da man into doin' somethin' 'orrible,” she replied slowly, thoughtfully. “We done somethin' good dere, today. Eventually dat man will get 'is peace. And 'is family, too. In deir own way.”
From the back of the Porsche I realize the battle we have ahead of us. How overwhelming it really is. And I'm not referring to the battle against poltergeists, but the war against the 23 Evils.
Look, I tell them, we can't save the world like this. We can't defeat evil one house at a time. It will just take way too long.
22
ALG office.
Saturday morning, July 14th . . .
We dropped off all of our equipment last night, along with our quick versions of the story for Billtruck to interpret. He had all night to take the film and run it through the different software that we have at the office. After that we all headed back to the loft and crashed out.
This morning we're doing the post-mortem inquiry. That is to say, we're going back through the tape, looking for any interesting occurrences, trying to find evidence of the paranormal. We figure, with everything else that happened, we might just have ourselves a bonafide haunting in that house.
Billtruck and Ricky have reviewed the tapes and nothing raised any flags. The Full-Spectrum camera's film is taking a bit longer to load up, but the Thermal Imaging camera and the Standard camera seems to show nothing of consequence. The only freaks running through that house last night were us. Mostly me, in fact.
So my job, when the film is ready to scan, is to click my way through the few hours that we had the cameras on, and see if anything comes up. I think they just gave me an easy job so I'd stay out of the way of the real work—monitorning the EVP from the wireless microphones.
They're using all sorts of complex devices and filters to sift through the 12 different recorded tracks made by the wireless microphones. The files, Billtruck said, were much bigger in the attic microphones and the master bedroom.
This, doesn't make sense to me.
All of that vibrating and rattling upstairs should have had all the mics going nutzo. Not one or the others, but all of them. I have a whole mess of questions for them, but they seem content to let the filtering software work its magic while they head out for Mexican food at On the Border . They offered to take me, but I'm actually looking forward to some alone time.
Ms. Josephine is coming by later, after she tends to her shop. She probably has all kinds of rituals to do, and spider legs to mix into soups and various other concoctions I don't want to imagine.
My right hand is on the mouse, just clicking my way through the segments of Standard and Thermal video. I'm looking at the staircase, and the second floor hallway, from the living room. It looks different on the flat screen in front of me. It looks like some place I've never been. Then I see me walking by.
And I've got to admit, I look pretty good in black-n-white, and green-n-grey. I'm a warm spot in an otherwise cold picture of the house. This could be blueprints it's so sketchy and unnatural. But, it is as close as our technology will get to tracking our invisible monsters.
I've clicked through about fifteen clips of video when I think I see something. It looks like there is a shadow of somebody near the kid's bedroom door, and then it's gone. I go back, slowing the clip down, taking my time. Now I'm rolling the frames back one at a time, the time and date stamped at the bottom right of the screen.
And right when the sun seemed to be gone, the shadow seems to flash by. But then, here I come with my flashlight and everything disappears. I play it over and over, each time looking for some way to explain it. I'm so close to the screen that I'm probably getting a brain tumor from the radiation. But as I continue to ins
pect it, I realize that it is probably just a shadow cast by my halogen light.
Damn. That would have been cool to find a ghost while Ricky and Billtruck are out to lunch. I could hold that over their heads forever.
Anyway, I mark down the time of the footage, and the appropriate numbers at the bottom of the screen so that we can go back at a later time and check this with the other cameras. The idea to this, as explained by Billtruck, is that the Standard camera and Thermal Imaging camera capture what's really happening. Then, the Full-Spectrum camera takes everything and lays it together, along with several types of visual that we humans cannot possibly have.
We'll be able to look at heat signatures, and really check out the far corners of visible and invisible light. See, the spectral regions adjacent to the visible band are often referred to as light, but also you search the infrared at the one end and ultraviolet at the other. Since light is so fast—299,792 kilometers per second—we need really expensive cameras to break it down and study it.
I think all of this stuff is just really cool. Seven months ago I was an intellectual infant. And look at me now, studying sections of the light wave for ghosts and scary things that I'll probably never find.
I look at my watch, and then I look down, lifting the collar of my shirt so that I can see down my chest and stomach at my new tattoos. They're not itching too much right now, and I've kept from scratching them. This should look really neat when I cross over and see Deadsiders again.
I turn and look across our office. Now, it's more of a research facility. It's taking on it's own personality. I could be in some lab at Langley, getting ready to plan some mission for the CIA. Or at a secret North Korean facility, covertly enriching fissionable materials against the wishes of the UN.
The shiny computer screens. The black rolling chairs. Our quiet room. If Ricky's right, we have enough computing power to take over the free world. I close my eyes and just listen to the hum, buzz, hiss, and clicks that all the machines in here collectively make. And then I hear this knocking sound.
I stand up quickly, hoping that none of the super-expensive computers are trying to take a nosedive without Billtruck and Ricky around. There's nothing I can do to salvage them, and I was expressly told never to unplug anything. They have all sorts of power supplies, and surge protectors, and fail-safes for the fail-safes.
“If it catches on fire and burns,” Billtruck said, “ . . . then let it. It's supposed to.”
I walk towards one of the supercomputers, hoping the knock will stop. Thankfully it does. I breathe a sigh of relief and then I hear it again. But, coincidentally, a few feet down is the front door to the office. I'm fairly certain somebody is knocking at the door.
Cool, that's way better than a meltdown that I can only watch happen.
I go to the door, open it, and I am completely stunned. I have no words. I'm dumbfounded. My mouth, I think it's hanging open like a retard, and if I don't get myself together I'm going to slobber.
I wave my hand like a mental patient answering for roll call.
23
ALG office.
12 awkward seconds later . . .
The first thing she does is look at me and smile. She's got on her green Barnes & Noble shirt, but she's taken off the name tag. She's wearing bluejeans that are almost faded to white. Her hair is pulled back into a ponytail, and her face, it's gotten some sun on it since we met the other night.
I so hope she's not here to serve me with a restraining order. Because, she looks very attractive right now, and having her hit me with an invisible 500 meter boundary would be brutal on my book browsing.
“Hi, Jack,” she says.
Hi . . . Angela.
I look at her hands.
“What?” she says, looking down at herself. “Do I have something on my pants? I was doing inventory this morning, that's why I'm dressed so trashy.”
I'm still standing at the door, waiting for a lawyer or a game warden or something. How do they serve those restraining orders, anyway?
No, I say. You look fine. I just thought . . .
She looks at me, her eyes kind of big and brown and wonderful. “I hope you don't mind me coming by. Your brother . . . Ricky, he gave me your business card and said for me to stop by on Saturday if I got a chance and you'd show me around.”
She peeks past me, looking in at our electron-filled office. “You know, I wasn't sure about coming and meeting you . . . ”
“ Oh ,” I said. My head might have lowered a bit when she said it.
“No, no,” she said, “not like that. No, I just didn't know if . . . you know,” and then she started staring down at her hands, kind of touching the tips of her fingers together, index to index, pinkie to pinkie.
My head lifted a bit. I ask her, “So, you're not here to serve me with a restraining order?”
She laughs, her left hand reaching out for my right forearm and touching it briefly, “No. Why on earth would I do that?” And she laughs some more. I like her smile.
Her being happy, it makes me feel better. So I smile to her, present my hand and say, “My name is Jack Pagan, let me welcome you to the After Life Group.”
We shook hands, her warm little hand in mine. And she looked up at me, her eyes liquidy and full, and she said, “It's a pleasure to meet you, again, Jack Pagan. My name is Angela Lima.”
And then I stepped aside and led her into to my life, if only peripherally. As we walk past the threshold of the door her expression becomes one of awe. She doesn't say anything, she just walks with me, staring and blinking.
We make our way past several of the workstations and she is just like a small child at the zoo for the first time. Everything is new and interesting. On the walls large flat screens have the different news stations from around the world streaming by video and information.
Everything is right here, right now.
She's so quiet, this Angela Lima, that I wonder if she's spooked.
Are you alright? I ask her.
“What is all of this? I mean, what do you do for a living, Jack Pagan?” And then she turns to look me in the eyes. “You look different than you did the other night at the store.”
Different good or different bad ? I ask. Because, you know, we have brighter lights in here, and they're colder, so it may make me look funny, and—
She smiles her lovely smile again, “No, not bad different. You look, I don't know . . . more confident. You're bigger.” Then she curls both of her hands to her stomach, doing a little bodybuilding pose and says, “Bulkier. Stronger.”
And now I laugh.
I tell her, Maybe that's the lights, too.
She's about a ten on the cuteness scale. Her features are kind of smooth and exotic. Her body thin and fit.
“So, Jack, seriously . . . what do you do here? I mean,” she glances around, “what is all of this for?”
“There's no easy way to put this,” I tell her, “ . . . it's really complicated.”
“Complicated? I'm a smart girl, I'll understand if you keep the words small enough.”
I'm not trying to insult her. This is weird. I reply, “Oh, no. I didn't mean it like that. It's just . . . without sounding like a goof, well, the skinny of it is, we are paranormal researchers.” And I wait for the question that always follows, preparing to defend us against the Ghostbusters image. But she doesn't say it.
Her eyebrows wrinkle a bit, “Hmmm. That must be difficult work.”
I glance around the room, my eyes too embarrassed to make direct contact with hers.
I say, I know it sounds ridiculous, but that's what we do. Although, in my defense, I'm fairly new to it. So I've got a lot to learn about the business.
“Jack,” she says as her fingers start to touch tip to tip, again, “would you like to have lunch with me and explain your interesting line of work?”
My heart skipped like three beats just then. This beautiful girl likes me. At least enough to see if she actually likes me.
Do
you like pizza, Angela? I ask, trying to find out just how close to perfect she actually is.
“Love pizza. Absolutely love it. It's in my blood. I'm part Brazilian and part Italian,” she answers, and then gives me a narrow glare. “Pepperonis or hamburger meat?”
Pepperonis.
“Anchovies?”
Never .
“Canadian Bacon and pineapple?”
Not over my dead body.
She takes my hand into hers and says, “Let's go to lunch.” And still, there are no legal documents to be had.
As we're walking towards the door she glances over at the workstation I was at, squinting, “What's that?”
Oh, it's a job we did recently. We're analysing the video to look for anything conclusive.
“No,” she says, “ . . . that in the corner there, by the doorway?”
That's probably nothing, I say, realizing that she just saw, from across the room, at a full stride, what I had mined out of the video after two hours of being an inch from the monitor. In just three seconds she found the shadow.
How good are your eyes? I ask her as we head out the door.
“I can see everything, Jack. Everything.”
Good, I tell her, because you're going to have to drive . . . I kind of forgot where I put my car.
She laughs and tugs on my forearm a bit, and even though it slightly stings with my fresh ink, I don't mind one bit.
24
Luigi's Pizza, Addison Circle.
20 minutes later . . .
When we walk in, Chris greets us, “Hey, Jackie, who is the Victoria Secret Model you brought with you?”
I turn to Angela, half apologizing, “That's one of our standing jokes,” I explain. “See, usually I eat here alone, so I always tell them I'm going to bring one of my model dates here the next time I come in.”
“I'm flattered,” she says, and she means it. She smiles to Chris, “What does he usually have?”
Chris, tall and skinny, with spiky blond hair and an Adam's apple way to big for his throat he replies, “Thick crust pepperoni and mushroom, cold Dr. Pepper, and plenty of red pepper.”
See Jack Hunt (See Jack Die) Page 10