by J. R. Rain
Admittedly, I didn’t like him; in fact, I might have irrationally hated him.
Hey, ghosts are allowed to be irrational.
The other guy was okay. He was younger, humbler, and better looking. He also seemed to take this ghost-hunting business a little more seriously. He was also mildly sensitive, the closest thing they had to a medium. Every now and then, his eyes would drift over in my direction, linger, and then look away. He knew something was there, but he didn’t know what, and he also didn’t know if he could fully trust his extrasensory perceptions.
In this case, yes, he could very much trust them.
With Jacob already looking bored, I followed the two ghost detectives and their cameramen into the nave. And since nobody held the doors open for Jacob and me, we simply walked through them.
Once inside the main chapel, the cameramen swept their powerful lights over the pews and stage and podium. In the dark, everything looked appropriately creepy.
The two detectives separated to cover more of the chapel. Ponytail and his cameraman headed up to the stage, while the younger guy and his cameraman headed toward the rear pews.
I followed Ponytail.
Taking an active interest in the proceedings, the red-eyed beings crept out of the shadows of the ceiling and stopped about a quarter of the way down the wall. Lord help anyone who touched that painting. Anyway, unless you knew what you were looking for, they appeared to be nothing more than shadows cast by the outside tree.
Ponytail was now standing directly beneath the statue of Jesus Christ. “Let’s get some shots of me standing here.”
The cameraman obliged, dropping to a knee and angling his camera in such a way that he got both Ponytail and Christ in the same shot. The former struck a very intrepid pose as he slowly surveyed the dangerously haunted inner sanctuary. Ponytail next walked over to the piano and, with the cameraman trailing behind, turned and looked somberly into the lens.
“Over the years,” he whispered with pseudoreverence, sliding his fingers over the closed piano keyboard cover, “there have been many reports of this piano mysteriously playing itself.” He paused and flipped his thick ponytail from his right shoulder to his left, a completely unnecessary move. He went on. “And, in a surprising twist, the school’s music teacher was found murdered on this same piano just a few months ago.”
As he glided his hand slowly over the closed lid, I drew some energy from the camera light—which caused it to flicker—and reached down through the closed wooden lid and struck a key.
A minor key, I think.
The sound echoed through the sanctuary, and Ponytail nearly did a backflip. He jumped about a foot or two off the ground and landed on his cameraman. Both landed in a heap.
When they had untangled, the cameraman, who looked a little pissed, said, “What the hell happened?”
“Something pressed the key down!” said Ponytail excitedly.
“You mean, you pressed the key,” said the cameraman.
Ponytail spun on him. “How the fuck could I press the key down if the cover is closed, dumbass?”
The commotion had attracted the attention of the younger costar and his own cameraman, who both hustled over.
“What’s going on?” asked the kid.
“The piano played by itself, Ray, I swear to God.”
The kid, or Ray, inspected the piano with his flashlight. “The cover is closed.”
“Thank you, Einstein,” said Ponytail, and took a deep breath and collected himself. He turned to his cameraman. “How did I look?”
“Scared shitless. And that was before you landed on me. The shot is wasted.”
“Fine. Let’s do another take. We can edit the piano key being struck later, too.”
And I proceeded to watch a rather amusing display of TV magic. On the second take, Ponytail once again ran his hand over the closed cover—then feigned hearing the sound. But this time, instead of scrambling for his life, his reaction was much more civilized and under control. He turned his head sharply, opened his mouth in surprise, then cocked his head knowingly, as if he had almost expected the piano to play.
“Good,” said the cameraman. “We can use that.”
“What’s going on?” Jacob asked me. I had nearly forgotten about the boy, and a lot of the fun I was having was lost on him.
“We’re having fun,” I said.
“We are?”
“Yes,” I said. “Watch this.”
Ponytail was currently leaning over and watching himself on some replay feature on the camera. I got the sense that he enjoyed watching himself. That he, in fact, lived to watch himself. Liking him less and less, I walked directly into his right shoulder and exited through his left. As I did, his body convulsed nicely.
“What’s wrong, Bob?” asked the other cameraman, looking at him.
Ah, so Ponytail had a name.
Bob, aka Ponytail, said, “I don’t know, man. Something very cold just went straight through me.”
Jacob giggled next to me. “Can I try?”
“Sure,” I said.
With a big grin on his face, the boy drifted quickly through Ponytail, entering through his back and exiting through his stomach. Ponytail spasmed instantly.
“Jesus Christ!” said the lead investigator, looking around wildly. “I swear to God it just happened again! Look at my arm! Quick, film it!”
The camera and light swung over to his forearm. I took a peek, too, and never have I seen such glorious goose bumps.
Ray, his young costar, looked at his forearm, too, but with skepticism. “Are you messing with us, Bob?” he asked.
“No, goddammit. I swear to God something went through me twice.”
And Jacob went through him yet again.
Ponytail shrieked, spun wildly around, and looked like a cornered hellcat. Except, nothing was cornering him. “It happened again! It’s attacking me! Help me, please!”
Jacob giggled some more. I nearly rubbed his damaged head, but stopped myself.
“Nothing’s attacking you,” said Ray calmly. He turned to one of the cameramen. “Is the air-conditioning on or something?”
The cameraman swiped his hand in front of a vent in the floor near the altar. “No, it’s not on.”
Ray looked over at Ponytail. “Should we continue rolling, Bob?”
Ponytail took a few deep breaths, calmed himself, stood a little straighter. “Of course we should continue rolling, dumbass. What the fuck do you think we’re here for?”
“Bob,” said one of the cameramen, “probably not a good idea to be cussing, you know, in a church.”
Ponytail looked like he was about to lay into the guy but decided against it. Instead, he turned to Ray. “Get the EMF detector.”
The kid reached inside a pocket and produced a handheld electronic gadget-thingy. Ponytail grabbed it without a thank-you and switched it on. A glowing LCD screen illuminated his face in a soft green glow.
“Point zero one,” he said, then lowered the gizmo to the carpeted floor. “Still point zero one. Looks like our base reading is point zero—”
I waved my hand in front of the detector.
“Holy shit! Thirty-four point two! Thirty-nine! It’s climbing.”
Those numbers got everyone’s attention. Ponytail swept the gizmo-thingy around some more—and plunged it straight into my chest.
“Sweet Jesus. Fifty-eight point three!”
He raised the thing as high as my head, then lowered it down to my feet, all the while calling out numbers that seemed to steadily rise. He then moved it away from me, and the numbers lowered.
“Okay,” he said, short of breath. He had worked himself up. He then shoved the detector back into my chest, which I found rather rude. “Whatever it is seems to be isolated right here.”
“About the height of a man,” said Ray.
I stepped to the left.
Ponytail frowned. “Damn, lost it.” He swept the detector around some more until he found me a few fee
t away. “Okay, found it.”
Always nice, I thought, to be referred to as an “it.”
Ray came over and tentatively reached out his hand. His groping fingers found my face. “It’s, like, ten degrees colder here,” he reported. “A moving cold spot.”
Ponytail grinned. “Looks like we found ourselves a live one, boys.” He then turned and looked directly into one of the camera lenses. “Here be ghosts.”
Oh, brother.
Ponytail turned to his young costar. “Walk with me.”
The two stepped away from the cameramen. I stepped away with them. Jacob had lost all interest in having fun and was now skipping down one of the aisles, humming to himself. The kid had the attention span of a puppy.
“Look,” said Ponytail, whispering to his costar, “I’m no more a ghost detective than I am the president of the United States. I have no fucking clue what I’m doing out here half the time. This is, what, our sixth show? The other shows turned up nothing. The ratings are down, and we need this show in a bad way.”
“So you weren’t faking any of that?” asked Ray.
“On my mother’s grave.”
“Your mother is alive.”
“Well, then on my grandmother’s grave. Look, I swear to you, I felt like something walked through me. Three fucking times. And the piano…I didn’t touch a damned thing, I swear to you. The thing played itself.”
“Okay, I believe you.”
“So what do we do now?” asked Ponytail earnestly, and for a moment, he actually seemed a decent enough guy. “I mean, what do they do on the other shows?”
“They usually talk to it and hope they catch something on their voice recorders, which they call electronic voice phenomena, or EVP.”
“Okay, good. Let’s do that.” And Ponytail immediately reverted back to his old, nauseating self. “But let me do the talking, okay? Obviously, this thing is attracted to me, for some reason.” He flipped his hair over a shoulder, heroically accepting the fact that he was the chosen one.
“Sure, whatever,” said Ray. “But maybe we should call the others—”
“No others,” Ponytail hissed. “This is our show, Ray. We both know who the stars are. Who’s gotten the most fan mail so far?”
“I’ve gotten three or four e-mails from a couple of housewives…”
“Well, that’s three or four e-mails more than the other two have gotten,” said Ponytail. “Which means zilch.” He flipped his long hair back over to his other shoulder for no apparent reason. Maybe his shoulder was cold? Anyway, I was tempted to flip it back, but I resisted the urge. Didn’t want the guy to shit his pants. At least, not yet. Ponytail went on. “Ray, you seem fairly, you know, sensitive at times. Have you seen or felt anything tonight?”
The kid thought about it, and as he did so, his eyes wandered up to the ceiling, where the red-eyed sentries were watching everything quietly from above. Then his eyes fell directly on me.
“There’s definitely something in this room,” he said. “But I’m not sure what. Maybe more than one thing.”
“If one of them is the dead music teacher,” said Ponytail, “maybe we could have her, you know, play the piano or something.”
“Whatever is here isn’t the dead music teacher.”
“How the fuck do you know that?”
“Call it a hunch, but I’m pretty sure they’re men, and one of them is standing by us now, listening to us.”
“Jesus, you’re creeping me out.”
The kid shrugged. “Like I said, call it a hunch.”
“But there’s no reports of a man dying here. Just a kid and the music teacher.”
“And the tortured monks,” said Ray.
“That was hundreds of fucking years ago,” said Ponytail. “C’mon, ghosts don’t stick around that long, do they?”
The kid shrugged. “I’m not an expert. I just work here, remember?”
“Okay, fine. Let’s go before they start thinking we’re up to something,” said Ponytail, and he indicated the two cameramen.
As they headed back, with me trailing behind, I spotted Jacob chasing random beams of light from the crew’s various cameras and flashlights. I could hear him giggling. At least he was having his own kind of fun.
Lord, I killed the kid and reduced him to the mentality of a feline.
“Roll cameras,” said Ponytail when they were back with the others. “Let’s see what the hell we’ve got on our hands.”
With cameras indeed rolling, Ponytail cleared his throat and, holding what appeared to be a voice recorder, intoned dramatically, “Is there anyone here with us now?”
I assumed he was talking to me. After a few minutes, Ponytail and the kid looked at each other. The cameramen looked at each other, too, shrugging.
“We’re friends,” added Ray hopefully. “Just here to chat. Can you tell us your name? Can you tell us who you are and why you’re here?”
It’s a long story, kid.
“We mean you no harm,” said Ponytail. “We’re here to, you know, help.”
Good to know, I thought, and wondered how Ponytail intended to, you know, help me. The cameramen looked at each other again, shaking their heads. Ponytail looked confused and frustrated. His ponytail was currently resting over his right shoulder like a sleeping pet snake.
“Can you give us a sign?” he asked again.
And so I did.
I once again drew energy from the camera, and once again, it flickered. When I was sufficiently galvanized, I dipped my finger down through the closed piano lid and pressed an ivory key. It might have been the same ivory key, too. Then again, I’m also tone-deaf.
All four jumped at once.
“Aha! See, I told you,” said Ponytail, vindicated, excited. He strutted back and forth in front of the piano like an orange peacock, hands on hips. I think he wanted to high-five someone, but no one volunteered.
Ray said, “Maybe there’s just something wrong with the piano, you know, like a malfunction or something?”
So I pressed another. Then another.
“Jesus,” said one of the cameramen. I noticed his camera was shaking.
And as I kept pressing the keys, the two ghost detectives actually retreated. Some detectives. Ponytail’s cameraman was the bravest of the bunch; he walked right up to the piano and, still shooting, flipped open the keyboard cover. I quit playing.
“It stopped,” he reported.
Ponytail had gone bone white. Or, more fittingly, ghost white. “Oh…my…God,” he said. “That did not just happen.”
“If I were a betting man,” said his cameraman, still standing over the piano, “I would bet that there’s a mouse loose among the piano strings.”
“There’s no way,” said Ponytail, recovering quickly. He wasn’t going to let anyone steal his ghost story—and thus his ratings. And, perhaps more important, his fan mail. “There’s something going on here, something powerful.”
Ooh, I liked that! Powerful. I haven’t been called powerful in quite some time, if ever.
“I agree,” said Ray. “There is something going on here.”
“Oh, hell yeah!” said Ponytail, pumping his fist. “Everyone will be talking about this episode. Everyone.” He paused. “Make sure you edit that out,” he said to no one in particular.
“I still say it’s a mouse,” said the cameraman.
But Ponytail wasn’t listening. He had a sort of faraway look in his eyes that suggested he was already seeing the weekly Nielsen ratings. Perhaps he was already signing his next big contract. Maybe someday he would. But first, he had to get through this night.
“Hey,” said Ponytail’s cameraman. “I think something just tried to walk through me.”
We all turned to look at him. I raised my ghostly eyebrows, curious, since Jacob was at the far side of the room and the three red-eyed sentries were still high above, watching us vigilantly.
“Really?” asked Ponytail, excited.
“Yeah,” said the man.
“And since I’m such a fat fuck, it’s still only about halfway through.” He bowled over with laughter. So did the other cameraman. Both nearly dropped their cameras.
“Maybe he’s lost,” said the other cameraman, gasping, barely getting the words out. “You know, stuck in your fat ass.”
Both were nearly crying with laughter. And with the cameras nearly useless, I took the opportunity to draw power from the machines. As I did so, their lights flickered. So much so that everyone turned and looked at them. The laughter immediately stopped.
“Whenever they flicker,” said Ray portentously, “something happens.”
I materialized before them.
For the first time in a long time, all eyes were on me.
I had no idea how much of me had materialized. I had no idea how solid I was, or even if any details had come through. Did I appear as nothing more than a bright light? Or could they see a man standing before them, a man in his midthirties, hair slightly disheveled, bullet wounds dotting his chest and head and neck?
I didn’t know, but they sure as hell were seeing something.
Ponytail lost it, shrieking as if someone had doused him with gasoline and set him on fire. He turned, started to run, forgot he was on a raised stage, and pitched forward. I heard a dull crack.
The image of Jacob falling to his death came to mind instantly.
Jesus, what have I done?
Miraculously, Ponytail found his feet. Woozy and punch-drunk and bleeding from a sizable head wound, he managed to stumble out of the nave and out through the side door.
The others barely gave him a glance; instead, they just stared at me in openmouthed wonder. One of the cameramen tried his camera, but it wouldn’t work. No surprise there, since I was using all its juice.
“Are you guys seeing this?” asked Ray quietly, awe in his voice. Surprisingly, there was little fear.
The cameramen nodded, but Ray didn’t notice them; instead, he moved bravely forward and reached out a hand. He gently touched my shoulder.