by D V Wolfe
Margo gave me a tight-lipped smile and her gaze slid to Noah. “Did you lose your luggage too?” She asked.
Noah nodded and stood up. I could hear the sound of the salt shifting in his cargo short pocket as he hurried up to the counter and gave her his baggage tag.
“Same flight?” Margo asked, looking from Noah to me.
I nodded, hoping I hadn’t just blown our cover. The door behind Margo opened and another woman came out. This one was older, mid to late thirties with glasses and a high bun. She was buttoning up an AmFirst vest with a name tag pinned on it that said, “Wendy”.
“You’re early,” Margo said, looking over at Wendy.
Wendy shrugged and smiled at Noah and I. “Can I help you?”
“I’m already helping them,” Margo snapped.
Wendy gave Margo a dirty look and moved to the computer that sat next to Margo’s on the counter. She started typing while Margo was looking up Noah’s ticket.
Margo nodded. “Yep, it looks like your bag was scanned in as ‘received’ too.” She shook her head. “I swear, this happens at least once a day. This is the third time today.”
Wendy picked up a silver pen off the countertop and moved away from Margo to a clipboard hanging on the wall.
“Uh, excuse me,” Margo said. “You took my pen.”
Wendy didn’t turn to look. She twisted the top of the silver pen and took the clipboard down. “I’m sorry, I didn’t see your name on it,” she snapped at Margo.
“I had it first,” Margo said. “Give it back.”
I turned to look at Noah. We both took a huge step back.
“Uh,” Noah said. “There’s a cup of pens on the countertop.” He pointed to the cup next to Margo’s computer. The women ignored him. Margo stomped the six steps between her terminal and Wendy with the clipboard.
“Give it back, Wendy,” Margo barked.
“Screw off,” Wendy said, flipping the page on the clipboard. The temperature in the room was dropping. I exhaled and I could see my breath in front of me. The overhead fluorescent lights began to flicker. Wendy and Margo didn’t seem to notice. Margo reached out and grabbed the top of the pen. Wendy turned and hit Margo with the clipboard upside the head.
“Shit,” I said. I reached down and grabbed the zipper on the fanny pack. I got it open about an inch and it snagged on the fabric. “Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck!” I muttered as I struggled with it. Meanwhile, Wendy was clobbering Margo with the clipboard, but Margo had taken the gloves off and was starting to claw at Wendy. Something that looked like a huge black shadow seemed to be leaking out between their hands that clutched at the pen. Both of them gave a sharp inhale as the shadow split and seemed to be sucked in through their mouths. Crap. I knew what we were hunting.
“Salt, Noah,” I said. I hurried around the counter, taking a hit to the head with the clipboard as Wendy hauled back with it. Margo had managed to get the pen away from Wendy and she was about to stab Wendy with it. Wendy managed to block the assault with the clipboard and then she struck out again. Wendy turned quickly, trading places with Margo and knocking me into the wall behind the counter. I was still trying to get the fanny pack open. “Get to Margo,” I yelled at Noah. I was stuck behind Wendy who was still trying to hit Margo with the clipboard. “Get the salt in her mouth,” I yelled. Finally, I got the zipper open. I threw the E.M.F. reader on the ground and dug out a handful of salt. I got an arm around Wendy’s throat in a headlock and I smacked the handful of salt against her lips. She was fighting against me, but I held on tighter. I could feel her saliva on my hand as it slid across her teeth and wet gums. She opened her mouth to breathe and I dumped in enough salt for her to start coughing. I looked across to see Noah struggling to do the same with Margo. I tried to shove Wendy forward so I could get over to help them. Noah had the salt in one hand and Margo’s arm wielding the pen bent back and around him. She was spinning on the spot, trying to get away from the salt. I shoved Wendy forward and I smashed Wendy into Margo and pinned them both to the wall. Noah reached in and almost punched Margo in the face, trying to get the salt into her mouth. The flickering of the lights sped up and the sound of men screaming filled the room. Something forced my hand away from Wendy’s mouth. Noah’s hand shot away from Margo’s face and both women coughed, a black haze pouring out of their noses and mouths.
“Get the pen out of her hand!” I yelled at Noah. Noah grabbed Margo by the wrist and shook her arm. The pen flew out of her hand and landed on the counter. The black haze sucked back into the pen. The temperature began to return to normal and the lights quit flickering. Wendy’s legs went out from under her and she fell back, knocking me to the ground. Margo fell sideways into Noah’s arms and he sat down hard, holding her. For a minute, none of us spoke. We were all breathing hard.
“So,” I said when I could speak again. “What did we learn about sharing?”
“What...the...hell...happened?” Wendy wheezed, coughing and spitting salt onto the floor. She turned her head and I saw Margo meet her gaze. “Are you ok?” She asked Margo.
Margo looked horrified. She nodded quickly and coughed into her hand. She looked down at the salt she’d coughed up. “What the hell is this?”
“Salt,” Noah said. Margo turned to look at him in horror.
“You were being possessed,” I said.
“I’m calling security,” Wendy said, struggling against me.
“Sure,” I said. “And we’ll just leave you two to go back to fighting to the death over office supplies.”
Wendy paused and as one, we all turned our heads to look at the pen that was sitting on the edge of the counter, the silvertip visible from where we sat on the floor.
“Let me guess,” I said, looking from Wendy to Margo. “That’s Fred and Murray’s space pen?”
Margo nodded. “Yeah. The police took it originally as evidence. That’s what Fred used to...you know...and then on himself. They brought it back after they closed the case because they guessed it belonged to the office. I thought it was pretty morbid, but then I accidentally picked it up last night and it’s just so smooth. And it writes so well. You never have to screw with it to get the ink to come out…”
“I’m sure there will be another pen,” I said, getting to my feet. “And probably one that won’t try to kill you or the people around you.” I moved to the counter and pulled a Kleenex out of the box. I picked up the pen and dropped it into the salt in the fanny pack. I zipped it shut and turned to look at them. Margo had gotten to her feet and held out a hand to Wendy. Their hair was mussed and Margo’s eye was puffy where Wendy had caught her with the clipboard. Wendy’s vest had a rip at the seam where Margo had gotten a hand on her, and she had a scratch from Margo’s nails on her cheek, but besides that, they didn’t look too bad considering they’d been spirit-possessed.
Margo shook her head and looked around. “Uh, thanks, I think. Wow.” Margo slumped onto a tall stool behind the counter. Wendy moved around the counter and sat down on one of the chairs set out for the people waiting on their luggage.
“We’re going to leave you ladies, now,” I said to them, motioning to Noah to grab the E.M.F. reader off the floor. Margo and Wendy just looked at us. “Ok,” I said. “Let this be...a lesson to you both about…” I looked at Noah. He gave me a deer in headlights look. “About using office supplies that were also used to murder your co-workers.”
“Or suicide your co-workers,” Noah added. I cleared my throat and raised an eyebrow at Noah. ‘What?’ He mouthed at me. I shook my head and headed for the office door.
“Uh, wait,” Margo said. I turned to look back at her. “What...what about your lost luggage?”
I patted my fanny pack. “We got what we came for.”
2
“So now we have this…” Noah glanced over at the fanny pack in the seat between us, “haunted pen.”
“Yeah,” I said, backing us out of the parking lot.
“So,” Noah said. “What do we do now? Go to M
urray and Fred’s houses and burn their stuff? Or…” Noah was still for a moment. I glanced over at him. He was pale and I saw him swallow hard. He turned to look at me. “Do we have to...I mean, are we going to have to...you know...dig?”
“Dig?” I asked, playing dumb and trying to hide my grin from him.
“You know,” Noah said, lowering his voice. “Dig up their bodies and...uh...burn them?”
“We would,” I said. “If this was a haunting.” I pulled out onto the main road.
“What do you mean?” Noah asked. “Don’t tell me you didn’t see all that crap back there? The shadow that came out of that thing,” Noah looked down at the fanny pack. “I mean the dropping temperature, the flickering lights, that means it’s a haunting, right?”
“Hauntings often have cold spots and electrical interference,” I said.
“So?” Noah asked.
“But this isn’t a haunting,” I said.
“It’s not?”
“Nope.” I steered us onto 64 South.
“Ok,” Noah said. “I’ll bite. Dazzle me. What is this then?”
“If this was a haunting, you’d be absolutely right. We’d need to go dig up old Fred and Murray, throw them in the truck and go looking for a crematorium. Then, we’d have to go break into their houses and burn all of their shit to make sure there wasn’t anything left holding them here. A haunting is usually a person being tied to a specific place, almost always where they were killed or a place that had some significance to them. In the case of Fred and Murray,” I said, tapping the fanny pack. I shook my head. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but Fred and Murry’s pettiness or annoyance or whatever it was that drove Fred to kill Murray and then himself was bound to this space pen when they died.”
“So it is a haunted pen,” Noah said, turning to look at me.
I shrugged. “We call it a ‘cursed object’.”
“Wait, isn’t that what Vince was looking for in your truck?”
“Yeah. Different kind though. This one was naturally made. What Vince was looking for was something that would have been made specifically to track us. Black magic hoodoo or in our case, the soul stone made of you know...actual soul. This one,” I nodded down at the fanny pack, “is just an object that’s been cursed by the spirits…” I took a breath. “Of two grown-ass men, fighting over a pen.”
“That’s just,” Noah shook his head and laughed. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Yep,” I said. I reached over and turned on the radio. An AC/DC song was winding down. I held my breath as it ended, praying that Walter was about to come on and announce another ten hunts. Instead of Walter, Mick Jagger started crooning over the airwaves. Shit. I snatched my phone off the seat.
“Relax,” Noah said. “I’m sure Walter will be back on in a minute.”
“Yeah, and ten other eager beaver callers will be standing by, ready to scoop up all the good hunts,” I muttered. I flipped the phone open and hit the six on speed dial. I tapped my thumb against the steering wheel while I waited. Come on, Walter. Give me some good news about some bad shit happening somewhere.
“Hello?” Walter croaked.
“Hiya Walter,” I said. “We’ve done the trash pick-up in Columbus.” There was silence. “Walter?”
“Well...that’s good,” Walter said, slowly.
“So, what else have you got for us?” I asked.
“Sorry, Bane, I haven’t had any more visions since this morning. Maybe the baddies are sleeping in today.” Walter chuckled, but it sounded forced.
“Is that normal these days?” I asked.
“Well...no,” Walter said. “On an average day, I’ll have something new every hour or two, but there’s been a delay before.”
“Like when your wife was blocking you?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Walter said. “But this feels different. I don’t think I’m blocked. Shoot, it’s only been about four...five hours since I’ve seen anything.”
“And you’re sure that Betty…” I started to say. I wasn’t really sure how to bring up the topic of him making sure that his dead wife’s spirit was really gone and not waking back up again.
“I’ll get out the old E.M.F. machine and scan the whole place, just to be sure,” Walter said. There was a note of sadness in his voice. I knew this wasn’t easy for him. Because her spirit had come back, he’d had to say good-bye to her, not once, but twice. I really hoped it wouldn’t have to be a third time. For multiple reasons.
“Let me know if anything turns up in your readings,” I said.
“Will do.” Walter hung up and I dropped the phone back into the seat.
“Damn,” I muttered.
“Nothing new to hunt yet?” Noah asked.
“Nope,” I said.
Noah patted the fanny pack. “Well, just as well, we still have this thing to deal with.” He turned his head to focus his attention on me. “Ok, so what do we do with a cursed object?”
“We take it to someone who can scrub it squeaky clean, break the curse, all of that,” I said.
“And that would be who?”
“Stacks, Tags, Rosetta. Personally, my pick would be Rosetta because I saw the stuff to make Huckleberry Buckle on the counter when we left this morning.” I turned off of 64, heading for the back road to get us east to Ft. Hope.
“Sold,” Noah said. He leaned back in his seat and grinned at me. “Well, this was easy. I think this might be my favorite hunt so far.” He closed his eyes. “Ridiculous? Yes. But nice and easy.”
There wasn’t any traffic, oncoming, or in our lane. Not that unusual for this two-lane. The sun was blazing above us and causing a heat mirage to rise off of the pavement. There was something up the road and at first, I thought I was seeing things. There were four black SUVs parked across the highway in front of us, forming a blockade.
“Noah, did you have to jinx us?” I asked.
“Shit! What’s that?” Noah asked, sitting up. He leaned forward and squinted out the windshield. “Black SUVs!” He turned to look at me. “Demons?”
“I doubt it’s a car show,” I said. I slowed down and aimed for the shoulder so that I could flip a U-turn. I caught movement in my rearview mirror. Three more SUVs were coming up behind us, driving down both lanes.
“Shit! What are we going to do?” Noah asked. “They’re behind us too!”
“I noticed,” I said. I checked out the ditches. Five feet deep on either side with a steep incline. We weren’t going to make it through one of those. I slowed us to a stop about a hundred feet from the SUV blockade. How the hell had Walter not seen this coming?
“What are you doing?” Noah asked.
“The only thing we can do,” I said. “See what’s on their minds.”
“Yeah, this should go well,” Noah muttered. Doors opened on the SUVs and ten men and women in black suits got out, guns drawn.
“Hell must be big on those cop procedural dramas,” I said, taking in their outfits.
“Yeah, I would have thought they’d all be dressed like Stephen King characters,” Noah said. He turned to me. “So, what’s the plan?”
I squinted out at the demons. “I don’t know if it’s a comfort, but almost all of them are holding their guns like it’s their first time.”
“You think it’s another ‘D’ team?” Noah asked.
“Only one way to find out,” I said.
“I hate this plan,” Noah said.