The call had been brief and a little hard to understand. It was as if the person calling was speaking on a phone that had been dunked in the toilet one too many times. They spoke of a dangerous entity and gave Ginko directions to a bar settled neatly on the edge of a dry nowhere town.
This couldn't possibly be the intro to a slasher flic, could it?
It was a little suspicious, he had to admit. But business was always slow, and lately it had been even slower, and Ginko quite literally could not afford to turn down a job based on the call being kind of shifty.
So he packed up his supplies and got on one bus after another, and within a day or so after the call was placed, he was walking up to the door.
He looked the place over, then went to push the door open after putting out his cigarette and making a quick check to be sure his eyepatch was in place.
The bar wasn't packed, but it was noisy. Customers shouted at the television, laughed with one another in their booths, and the tender, Ernie, was having a lively conversation with one of his patrons.
The walls were absolutely covered with mix-and-match taxidermy and road signs and a thick cloud of cigarette smoke filled the topmost half of the room. Nobody turned to look at him.
Well, looked like he didn't have to worry about the cigarette after all. It was force of habit, more than anything - some clients didn't seem to like their first encounter with a medium to involve him smoking. Not that the scent didn't cling to his clothes anyway.
He walked up to the bartender, paying as little attention to the customers as they did to him. Ginko waited for just the slightest lull in the conversation before speaking up. "Excuse me; my name is Ginko, I recently received a call about a possible source of disturbance here?"
Another thing he had learned: If there were a lot of people around, avoid words like "ghost", "infestation", and "dangerous". Especially if said people were customers.
Ernie was a squat, balding man and what hair was left on his head was bright red. He lanced up from his conversation and had to do a double-take. It wasn't every day you saw someone like Ginko. He worked his mouth from one side to the other as he tried to decide what to make of him.
"Well, it wasn't me--" His face changed. Something occured to him and suddenly he grew a little excited. "Are you with one of them television shows?"
FACTS: - The lot the Pit Bull occupies was previously a shop called Lonnie's Bait and Tackle. - In 1988 a city-wide blackout was caused by the largest electrical storm on record for Texas. - In 1988, the body of a man was discovered in Lonnie's Bait and Tackle by the owner. The man was suspected to have died from electrocution as evident by multiple burns on his body. - Lonnie's Bait and Tackle moved to a larger establishment in 1990 NEW MINNOW TANK BRING YOUR KIDS. - The Pit Bull was established in 1993.
Ginko spent most of the next day in the library, hunting through newspapers and archives, ignoring any strange looks he got, and assuring any curious Pit Bull patrons he ran into that he was working on figuring out what was going on.
In the end, there was one obvious conclusion to come to. He scribbled the notes down, compared them with what he already had. By the time the bar would be closed, he was pretty satisfied with what he had to tell Maurice.
He waited until an hour or so after closing before returning to the Pit Bull; the moment the door was unlocked, he hurried inside, grinning triumphantly and holding up his notebook. It was opened to a page covered in bubbled notes, connected by lines and notes and arrows.
To be honest, Maurice wasn't sure just what to expect to come out of this 'calling an exterminator' business he'd gotten himself into. He wanted to help the bar and he wanted to help Ginko but he couldn't help being just a little afraid.
What if he got exorcised too?
But he unlocked the door anyway because this bar was his responsibility and sometimes you had to take risks to protect something you loved. Then Ginko burst in and caught Maurice completely off guard because he didn't know the one-eyed man's mouth could do the upside down frowny thing. The ghost's outline fluctuated for a moment before he too broke into a grin.
"Great! Wait, what?"
He sounded so happy...but he never did get it out of the guy if he thought there was a body or not but he was pretty sure that one of those two things would be true.
"I had never been totally sure whether the body was there, but I had figured it probably was. I was wrong," he explained, already starting to pace back and forth over the floor.
"It's not where the body is, after all, it's where the ghost died. It all fits." He shoved his notebook at Maurice again, pointing out a few scribbled notes. "Before this bar was built, a man died here in an electrical storm - then there's another electrical storm, and suddenly things start going wrong. It's got to be him."
Without so much as a pause, he spun the notebook around to start looking over it again himself. "That would also support the assumption that he's upset about the changes to the area... but, of course, I can't be sure of that either. And even if that's the case, it leaves the question of what can be done to stop him before someone else gets hurt."
It wasn't as if his absence was for no reason, of course. After a fire of that scale, there would be people. News crews, possibly, and curious bystanders. And, of most concern, the bartender who distrusted Ginko from the start. He couldn't afford to be around there.
One night, though, a scraped-up old car that looked like it had been on its last legs for a few years now pulled into the lot for the fourth time. Ginko climbed out, shoving the door shut after a couple attempts to keep it from bouncing right back open, and took a few steps forward, shoving his hands into his pockets as he looked around the site.
Ginko would be able to poke around for a good half hour or so before the air around him started to grow cooler. There wasn't any breeze to speak of. Finally a voice came from somewhere to his right. It was soft and far away as if someone were trying to talk to him from the end of a long hallway.
"You came back..."
It wasn't accusing or angry. Or even that surprised. Just tired. Maurice was very very tired. With no patrons and no electronics to sap energy from, it was all he could do to speak.
He looked up with a start, but his shoulders slumped again in relief when he saw Maurice. That didn't last long, though; even if he hadn't vanished entirely, the ghost clearly wasn't in the best of shape.
"Yeah." Ginko didn't provide an explanation, whether for his absence or for his return. Instead, he straightened up from where he had been picking idly through the debris. So far, he had found exactly one of his marbles, the glass cracked and warped. It was a wonder the thing hadn't shattered entirely, but it was still probably too damaged to be of much use... though he supposed some collectors might be interested, especially if he could find the others.
He looked Maurice over, a slight quirk of his brow the only indication of his concern. "...How are you holding up?"
"I'm...you know. Dead." Weary as he was, he still had some of his humor left in him. His form was faded and fuzzy around the edges. He didn't go through the trouble of manifesting legs today. "Bored mostly."
On one hand, none of the people he cared about would get hurt. On the other...he was actually lonely for the first time since he'd died. From day one there had always been activity. Now he had nobody to watch over or to watch period. After the scene with the bottles and the whispers from the towns folk, he wasn't sure a new place would be built any time soon.
"I'm gonna get real good at telling individual squirrels apart."
When Ginko's phone went off in the early hours of the morning, he moved faster to answer it than would have seemed possible a moment before. He also moved faster than his brain could actually wake up, but, fortunately, it didn't take a lot of brainpower to give the same memorized response as always. "Hello, this is Ginko, haunting investigator and spirit medium, how can I help you."
He slumped back against the headboard of the creaky motel bed, rubbing at his eye and stifling a yawn as the caller explained the situation. A couple mumbled "mm-hm"s and a quick "I'll be right there" later, he set the phone down with a tired grin.
"Haunting at a house a couple hours out of our way. Not bad."
Maurice was floating in his pretend chair near the TV and glanced over when the phone rang, quietly proud of himself for being able to keep himself from leeching its battery.
When Ginko gave him the news, the mechanic broke into an excited grin. "You wouldn't want some help, would you?"
Besides his weird crackly roomie, Maurice had never met another ghost.
"Sure; just gimme a couple minutes." He shoved the blanket aside and swung his legs off the bed, steadying himself with a hand on the bedpost as he stood up. "Gotta get dressed... 'n grab coffee on the way over. Would've been nice if that'd come in a little later..."
HE WAS GOING TO HELP. ON A REAL GHOST BUSTING CASE. OH MAN OH MAN. Maurice's outline fizzled but his smile didn't fade one bit.
"Yeah! Sure, sure."
The ghost quickly gave Ginko his privacy by drifting through the wall and waiting just on the other side. His marble lay in the ash tray on the dresser and rolled toward the wall from the force of the spirit's pull.
The next call didn't take too long to come in, and when it did it didn't take Ginko more than a moment to answer, all but leaping up from his seat in the grimy gas station McDonald's with how eager he seemed to take the call. He gave Maurice a brief look that was about as excited as he ever got, shifting remarkably quickly into his most professional tone of voice.
"Hello, this is Ginko, haunting investigator and spirt medium, how can I help you."
He would just ignore any weird looks from other patrons, thanks.
Maurice looked up from practicing moving salt and pepper around on the table, a grin on his face as well. OH BOY. Time to go do some GOOD OLD FASHIONED HEALIN' he bet! He was so proud to call Ginko his friend.
"H-hello," said the voice on the other end. A woman. "I found your website. It says you work with...poltergeist?"
"That's right." Ginko frowned thoughtfully. Depending on the poltergeist, this could be pretty simple or... really bad. He guessed there was nothing to do but find out.
"What's happened so far? Unless you would rather discuss it in person."
"No it's--it's fine. I'm not home now anyway. I'm in the library. It could hear me."
She was keeping her voice as low as she could. She sounded terrified and embarrassed and maybe even a little drunk.
"Things go missing," she continued. "Little things...my rings. Keys. But sometimes the entire sofa is moved. Blankets aren't where they're supposed to be. TV is on a different channel than when I left it...the Tevo is...taping things. I'm not crazy I swear I'm not! God I can't leave this house."
Maurice drifted closer, dying to hear but not wanting to drain Ginko's phone. "Oh, jeez..."
Maurice hovered anxiously next to Ginko, both acting as a cooling agent and guide. The car had finally started making some terrible wailing noises as they made their way down a long empty road and Maurice insisted they stop so he could take a look.
It wasn't good.
He could mend the thing just well enough to get them to a town where a tow wouldn't cos Ginko an arm and a leg, but that was it. If only he could get him to twist the right knobs so he could get a look at the belt!
Ginko let out a frustrated huff, blowing a few strands of hair away from his eye. Even with Maurice's help, it was boiling hot out, and the longer he kept working on this the more he felt like he was going to be cooked alive before they made any real progress.
He tried a different part, glancing at Maurice with a frown. "No, I've got it, just-- is this the right one?"
"A lot," was Maurice's very professional estimate.
He really wanted Ginko to be able to do this on his own, so when he moved on he wouldn't have to worry about dying of exposure. Or from his wallet being turned inside out by strange mechanics. He wanted to give him the satisfaction of doing it all by himself.
BUT IT WAS SO HARD TO WATCH.
"Naw, it's--here, let me. You can do it next time, your'e gonna melt out here!" Maurice leaned down to grab hold of the knobs himself, his presence now strong enough to at least make one of the caps twist. However, while he focused, he absentmindedly attempted to 'bump' Ginko out of his way with his side. This was counter productive because he did this knowing full well that he'd just pass right through the man. However he tried to move him aside so that wouldn't happen.
Okay, Maurice.
However, there in the blazing heat, whether it was Ginko's weakened state or Maurice's growing power, some shit happened and in a flash, not unlike a street swindler passing the ball from one cup to the other in a game of chance, Ginko's soul was jettisoned right out of his body and Maurice's was sucked into the empty space.
His first reaction was of course to let out a scream with Ginko's voice as he flailed backwards and landed hard on the packed red dirt.
"I can do it, it's fine, just gonna take a little more trial and--"
--And then The Thing happened, and when Ginko had been about to say something about trial and error this was not at all the kind of error he meant.
All Ginko really realized at first was that that SURE DID SEEM TO BE HIM THERE but, in fact, was not, and couldn't have been, because he was right here. He was shocked into silence for a few seconds, leaving him floating the few feet he had drifted away from his body.
"--Maurice, what the hell."
From his tone of voice alone, one would think that Maurice had just presented him with a really weird brand of beer that he was now expected to drink.
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WHO YOU GONNA CALL?
This couldn't possibly be the intro to a slasher flic, could it?
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So he packed up his supplies and got on one bus after another, and within a day or so after the call was placed, he was walking up to the door.
He looked the place over, then went to push the door open after putting out his cigarette and making a quick check to be sure his eyepatch was in place.
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The walls were absolutely covered with mix-and-match taxidermy and road signs and a thick cloud of cigarette smoke filled the topmost half of the room. Nobody turned to look at him.
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He walked up to the bartender, paying as little attention to the customers as they did to him. Ginko waited for just the slightest lull in the conversation before speaking up. "Excuse me; my name is Ginko, I recently received a call about a possible source of disturbance here?"
Another thing he had learned: If there were a lot of people around, avoid words like "ghost", "infestation", and "dangerous". Especially if said people were customers.
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"Well, it wasn't me--" His face changed. Something occured to him and suddenly he grew a little excited. "Are you with one of them television shows?"
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VERY VERY FRIGHTENING
- The lot the Pit Bull occupies was previously a shop called Lonnie's Bait and Tackle.
- In 1988 a city-wide blackout was caused by the largest electrical storm on record for Texas.
- In 1988, the body of a man was discovered in Lonnie's Bait and Tackle by the owner. The man was suspected to have died from electrocution as evident by multiple burns on his body.
- Lonnie's Bait and Tackle moved to a larger establishment in 1990 NEW MINNOW TANK BRING YOUR KIDS.
- The Pit Bull was established in 1993.
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In the end, there was one obvious conclusion to come to. He scribbled the notes down, compared them with what he already had. By the time the bar would be closed, he was pretty satisfied with what he had to tell Maurice.
He waited until an hour or so after closing before returning to the Pit Bull; the moment the door was unlocked, he hurried inside, grinning triumphantly and holding up his notebook. It was opened to a page covered in bubbled notes, connected by lines and notes and arrows.
"I was wrong about the body."
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What if he got exorcised too?
But he unlocked the door anyway because this bar was his responsibility and sometimes you had to take risks to protect something you loved. Then Ginko burst in and caught Maurice completely off guard because he didn't know the one-eyed man's mouth could do the upside down frowny thing. The ghost's outline fluctuated for a moment before he too broke into a grin.
"Great! Wait, what?"
He sounded so happy...but he never did get it out of the guy if he thought there was a body or not but he was pretty sure that one of those two things would be true.
Which. He guessed was a fact.
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"It's not where the body is, after all, it's where the ghost died. It all fits." He shoved his notebook at Maurice again, pointing out a few scribbled notes. "Before this bar was built, a man died here in an electrical storm - then there's another electrical storm, and suddenly things start going wrong. It's got to be him."
Without so much as a pause, he spun the notebook around to start looking over it again himself. "That would also support the assumption that he's upset about the changes to the area... but, of course, I can't be sure of that either. And even if that's the case, it leaves the question of what can be done to stop him before someone else gets hurt."
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I'M NOT GOOD AT THREAD NAMES
It wasn't as if his absence was for no reason, of course. After a fire of that scale, there would be people. News crews, possibly, and curious bystanders. And, of most concern, the bartender who distrusted Ginko from the start. He couldn't afford to be around there.
One night, though, a scraped-up old car that looked like it had been on its last legs for a few years now pulled into the lot for the fourth time. Ginko climbed out, shoving the door shut after a couple attempts to keep it from bouncing right back open, and took a few steps forward, shoving his hands into his pockets as he looked around the site.
...What a mess.
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"You came back..."
It wasn't accusing or angry. Or even that surprised. Just tired. Maurice was very very tired. With no patrons and no electronics to sap energy from, it was all he could do to speak.
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"Yeah." Ginko didn't provide an explanation, whether for his absence or for his return. Instead, he straightened up from where he had been picking idly through the debris. So far, he had found exactly one of his marbles, the glass cracked and warped. It was a wonder the thing hadn't shattered entirely, but it was still probably too damaged to be of much use... though he supposed some collectors might be interested, especially if he could find the others.
He looked Maurice over, a slight quirk of his brow the only indication of his concern. "...How are you holding up?"
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On one hand, none of the people he cared about would get hurt. On the other...he was actually lonely for the first time since he'd died. From day one there had always been activity. Now he had nobody to watch over or to watch period. After the scene with the bottles and the whispers from the towns folk, he wasn't sure a new place would be built any time soon.
"I'm gonna get real good at telling individual squirrels apart."
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ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER JOB
He slumped back against the headboard of the creaky motel bed, rubbing at his eye and stifling a yawn as the caller explained the situation. A couple mumbled "mm-hm"s and a quick "I'll be right there" later, he set the phone down with a tired grin.
"Haunting at a house a couple hours out of our way. Not bad."
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When Ginko gave him the news, the mechanic broke into an excited grin. "You wouldn't want some help, would you?"
Besides his weird crackly roomie, Maurice had never met another ghost.
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Ginko, eight in the morning is not that bad.
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"Yeah! Sure, sure."
The ghost quickly gave Ginko his privacy by drifting through the wall and waiting just on the other side. His marble lay in the ash tray on the dresser and rolled toward the wall from the force of the spirit's pull.
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lmk if this works or if you want to stay on this scene longer!
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AND THEN EVERYTHING WENT TO SHIT
"Hello, this is Ginko, haunting investigator and spirt medium, how can I help you."
He would just ignore any weird looks from other patrons, thanks.
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"H-hello," said the voice on the other end. A woman. "I found your website. It says you work with...poltergeist?"
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"What's happened so far? Unless you would rather discuss it in person."
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She was keeping her voice as low as she could. She sounded terrified and embarrassed and maybe even a little drunk.
"Things go missing," she continued. "Little things...my rings. Keys. But sometimes the entire sofa is moved. Blankets aren't where they're supposed to be. TV is on a different channel than when I left it...the Tevo is...taping things. I'm not crazy I swear I'm not! God I can't leave this house."
Maurice drifted closer, dying to hear but not wanting to drain Ginko's phone. "Oh, jeez..."
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Sound Mind and Body
Maurice hovered anxiously next to Ginko, both acting as a cooling agent and guide. The car had finally started making some terrible wailing noises as they made their way down a long empty road and Maurice insisted they stop so he could take a look.
It wasn't good.
He could mend the thing just well enough to get them to a town where a tow wouldn't cos Ginko an arm and a leg, but that was it. If only he could get him to twist the right knobs so he could get a look at the belt!
"Just...just let me..."
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Ginko let out a frustrated huff, blowing a few strands of hair away from his eye. Even with Maurice's help, it was boiling hot out, and the longer he kept working on this the more he felt like he was going to be cooked alive before they made any real progress.
He tried a different part, glancing at Maurice with a frown. "No, I've got it, just-- is this the right one?"
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He really wanted Ginko to be able to do this on his own, so when he moved on he wouldn't have to worry about dying of exposure. Or from his wallet being turned inside out by strange mechanics. He wanted to give him the satisfaction of doing it all by himself.
BUT IT WAS SO HARD TO WATCH.
"Naw, it's--here, let me. You can do it next time, your'e gonna melt out here!" Maurice leaned down to grab hold of the knobs himself, his presence now strong enough to at least make one of the caps twist. However, while he focused, he absentmindedly attempted to 'bump' Ginko out of his way with his side. This was counter productive because he did this knowing full well that he'd just pass right through the man. However he tried to move him aside so that wouldn't happen.
Okay, Maurice.
However, there in the blazing heat, whether it was Ginko's weakened state or Maurice's growing power, some shit happened and in a flash, not unlike a street swindler passing the ball from one cup to the other in a game of chance, Ginko's soul was jettisoned right out of his body and Maurice's was sucked into the empty space.
His first reaction was of course to let out a scream with Ginko's voice as he flailed backwards and landed hard on the packed red dirt.
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--And then The Thing happened, and when Ginko had been about to say something about trial and error this was not at all the kind of error he meant.
All Ginko really realized at first was that that SURE DID SEEM TO BE HIM THERE but, in fact, was not, and couldn't have been, because he was right here. He was shocked into silence for a few seconds, leaving him floating the few feet he had drifted away from his body.
"--Maurice, what the hell."
From his tone of voice alone, one would think that Maurice had just presented him with a really weird brand of beer that he was now expected to drink.
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ftr i'm gonna start using this account for psl things since it's got more not-troll icons
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