11 – The Hunters

Erika pulled up to the rundown arcade a full hour before midnight, their expected meeting time.

The old beater van was still parked around back. Rick’s ride, presumably. Joining it was a motorcycle. Not one of those sleek modern things, but an old-school Harley. The owner clearly took care of it. Most of it was polished up to a shine that gleamed in Erika’s headlights.

She pulled up alongside it, hopped out, and was just about to knock on the arcade’s rear door when she heard muffled voices coming from the other side.

Shouting voices.

Erika leaned in, ear to the door.

It sounded like Spanish. Angry Spanish.

Erika knew a bit of Spanish. She wasn’t sure that she would call herself fluent, but she knew enough to carry on simple conversations or understand when someone was talking about her behind her back. This was probably the latter case, but Erika didn’t know for sure.

While she knew a little Spanish, she did not speak muffled, irate Spanish.

So Erika thumped her knuckles against the door in the same shave and a haircut pattern she used the first time around.

If that was supposed to be a password of some kind, it sucked. She hadn’t thought about it earlier—she blamed invisible government robots and wizards for being a little distracting—but it was too well known. Erika wouldn’t say it was popular, at least not among her generation, but any random English-speaker probably had a ten percent chance of using it. As for Spanish speakers… Erika felt like she remembered reading about it being offensive for some odd reason.

It certainly got everyone on the other side to end their argument in a hurry. Erika listened a moment more, hearing someone complain about a lack of security cameras, before she pulled back.

The door swung open.

It wasn’t Rick.

A woman opened the door. Dressed in an old-style leather jacket and jeans, she must have been the owner of the bike. Erika’s eyes were drawn to her neck. She had a tattoo of a skull with strange, circuit-board-like lines drawn over it. Another, similar tattoo was just above her left ear where the hair on the sides of her head had been shaved short.

There was a tension in her arms, like she was ready to come at Erika swinging if necessary, though her blue eyes remained steady and watchful with no trace of hostility.

Erika backed up anyway. “Hey. Was looking for Rick. Or Leslie? Danny, even.”

“That’s her,” Rick called from further into the room. He stepped forward, showing himself.

Erika doubted he had slept since she last saw him. He stood, eyes half-lidded, idly scratching at his sandy hair. Notably, he still carried that cardboard mailing tube in his other hand. Erika couldn’t tell if his bright Hawaiian shirt was different from earlier or if he just owned a dozen similar shirts.

The woman drew in a breath and let it out slowly. “Anna,” she said, stepping aside.

“Erika,” Erika said as she slipped inside. “The place looks better than earlier.”

Not much better. Someone had dragged in a few cardboard boxes which were now set up as a makeshift table, and a handful of plastic chairs. They did nothing to make the place look cleaner. If anything, they just made it look like even more of a garbage dump. Some of the arcade cabinets did look like they had been separated from the rest though, cleaned hastily with a rag.

A pair of motorcycle helmets sat on the counter in the corner.

A water cooler now sat in one corner, its tank already half empty. Three boxes of donuts—two already gone—were piled up on the table.

“Leslie brought his kids by. Tidied up,” Rick explained as he retook a seat at the piled cardboard boxes.

Erika glanced around, raising her eyebrows.

“They’re coming back another day to do a better job,” Rick said with a sigh.

He wasn’t alone. Another woman who Erika didn’t recognize stood in the room, arms crossed over her healthy chest as she leaned against the wall. One of her hands, fingernails painted a tasteful black, fiddled with a necklace bearing several dozen religious symbols, from crosses to crescents to stars and even ankhs, all clanking together. Her brown eyes glowered at Erika between long strands of black hair. Based on her scowl alone, she was the one who had been yelling in Spanish moments ago.

Erika wasn’t quite sure what she had done to piss the woman off. Maybe someone insulted her outdated scene-style hairdo.

“Erika, this is Sofia. Sofia, Erika,” Rick said, lazily waving a hand between the two as he introduced them. “She’s the one who saw the archives.”

“Right. The infinite archives in a church basement.” Sofia had an audible sneer in her voice that she somehow managed to keep off her face. “Which you all want to break into again. This is a bad idea.”

“We’ll be careful,” Rick said, pointing a finger down at the makeshift table.

An overly large printout covered most of it. For a moment, Erika thought it was a strange tablecloth. Then she noticed the actual design. They looked like blueprints. Not like blueprints. They were blueprints of the church. She could see the entrance she had used, the exit, and the stairs, even the little adjoining park. The massive archives were missing, but that was to be expected.

“I drove by earlier today and—”

“It isn’t about how careful you are,” Sofia snapped with a heavy accent. “You can’t do this.”

“Shouldn’t be hard,” Anna cut in, pointing a thumb in Erika’s direction. “If she can pick the lock, so can I.”

Sofia pinched the bridge of her nose, sighing loudly. “Dios mío, dame paciencia con estos idiotas,” she muttered. “Not even getting into the weirdo robot or the magician she says they have, who will certainly be on guard, it’s a consecrated church. And you want to break in.”

“Can’t be worse than digging up graveyards,” Rick said.

“You’ve dug up graveyards?” Erika asked. “Tight.”

“Just the one time—”

“Twice,” Anna countered. “Arkham and the Henderson grave.”

“I said before, the Henderson grave was already dug up when I got there!” Rick said, thumping a fist on the table, denting the cardboard. “It wasn’t me.”

“What am I doing with these people?” Sofia said, now grinding her knuckles into her temples. “I signed up to put ghosts back in their graves. You all might be happy together in Hell, but I am not attacking a church on the word of some idiot teenager.” She paused, looked to Erika, and hesitated like she was about to say ‘no offense’. She didn’t quite manage the words before looking back at the others. “If any of you had a lick of sense about you, you wouldn’t be here either.”

With a final huff, she stormed out of the arcade, slamming the door behind her. The long moment of silence left in her wake was awkward enough on its own, but the way Rick and Anna were looking at each other—like this was something that occurred on the regular—made her feel a little bad about bringing something to the table that caused another conflict in their group.

“She seems…” Erika started, deliberately breaking the silence. She couldn’t quite find the word she wanted to use for Sofia.

“New,” Rick finished. “She’s only been with us a month and a half or so.”

“July was three months ago.”

He leaned back in his seat, completely ignoring Anna’s quip, and folded his hands over his stomach while that cardboard tube rested against his leg. “She got caught up with what we’re calling a poltergeist-style ghost since it seemed to fit with all the mythology I’ve read. This one was particularly active, throwing anything that wasn’t bolted to the ground. Had to dodge plates and forks and knives and a breadbox,” he said, rubbing at his arm as if in memory of being struck.

“She hasn’t quite figured out that ghosts don’t care about churches or crosses or consecrated ground,” Anna cut in, frowning at Rick.

“I didn’t see any ghosts,” Erika said, only to have any further conversation stalled by a raised finger from Anna.

“Hold that thought…”

Anna held her finger, seemingly waiting for something. Erika threw a glance at Rick and got an uncertain shrug in return. Just as she was about to ask what was going on, the door opened, meek and soft. Sofia stepped inside, avoiding eye contact.

“Anna… Could you…”

A slight grin hit Anna’s face, though it was hidden from Sofia by the way she stood. She quickly reset her features into a neutral expression as she turned. “There’s time to get you home.” Anna marched over to the counter, grabbed one motorcycle helmet and tossed it to Sofia—who just about fumbled it—before taking the second one under her arm. After checking her watch, she nodded to herself. “I’ll be back before midnight,” she said, then grumbled a bit more under her breath. “Probably before Leslie gets his lazy ass here.”

The two headed out. The deep rumble of the motorcycle’s engine nearly shook the building apart, revving a few times before the sound faded as it put some distance between them.

“Sofia doesn’t have a license,” Rick said as an explanation.

“Right. They live together or…”

“Nope. Anna lives with her mother in a little shotgun shack out in Humboldt. Sofia lives in a pretty nice apartment in—or near?—Wicker Park. Not sure exactly.”

“Anna picks her up for everything? Bit of a commute.”

“Yep. Would have been nice if I could have found a place a bit more central to all of us, but none of us are particularly wealthy. Except Sofia, maybe, but I gather that’s more her parents paying for her stuff than anything.” Rick let out a long yawn. “Anyway, good you’re here early. I had something I wanted to ask about. I drove by the old church earlier, thought I might catch them trying to move these archives if they thought to flee the location…

“Except I couldn’t really drive past at all. All the roads around the church were closed off. Apparently, some kind of gas explosion in the pipes in the streets?”

Erika stared blankly, wondering what he was talking about. She had just been there less than twenty-four hours ago, and everything seemed fine. Except… for that part where, in a panic, she had started destroying the street to escape. Thinking back to that made her wince. She had not been subtle. Not in the slightest. Leah always cautioned against using those kinds of abilities out in the open—or in private—and even fake-Leah warned her.

She couldn’t exactly say that she had been the cause. “Is that going to be a problem?” she asked, trying not to wince.

“Depends on how late anyone out there is planning on working. I imagine the city wants the incident investigated as soon as possible.” He leaned forward, drumming his fingers against the blueprints. “I bet those people are trying to cover something up. I’ll admit, I didn’t believe your whole story, but this is a bit of a coincidence if there isn’t anything suspicious about that place.”

Erika pursed her lips, cursing the consequences of her actions. She didn’t know how long things like that took to investigate, but if they suspected a gas leak, there could well be people buzzing about the place even late into the night.

She needed that book on The Fixer. She needed to know what she was dealing with. And maybe what was up with the invisible bot and Gandalf the Office Worker, if there were books about them.

If there were a bunch of investigators or construction workers around, and the ghost-hunting squad called this off…

She could always try to go in alone again. The thought of running into those monsters again without backup unnerved her. She had gotten away safely the first time, but both Erika and those people at the church had been surprised—presumably, anyway. It hadn’t felt like they had been expecting her. Certainly not for her to break things.

Erika roamed her flat gaze over Rick as the tired man picked up a coffee cup that came from the same shop as the donuts. He started to bring it to his lips only to shake it back and forth with a heavy-lidded glower. Letting out a long sigh, he tossed it…

And missed the trash can.

He slumped in dejection.

Erika continued her flat stare, wondering just how reliable a bunch of self-professed ghost hunters were. One of them had already flaked. Leslie was a conspiracy-theorist nutjob. Anna, Erika hadn’t really gotten to know her much yet—she had a nice bike, so Erika would give her that. As for Rick…

Standing near the trash, she ended up picking up the cup and throwing it away for him.

“Thanks.”

“You warned me about needing sleep, but now you’re like this?” Erika said, pulling out a chair opposite him and plopping herself down in it. “You’re one of those types who refuse to take their own advice, aren’t you?”

“What’s the phrase? Do as I say, not as I—” He couldn’t even finish without pausing to yawn. “Though, perhaps a quick power-nap is in order. We’ve got time.”

“You’ve got time. I slept half the day away.” Erika sighed, looking around the room at all the various arcade cabinets and pinball machines. She wondered if any worked, though not enough to try them out, even as a way to kill time. It would be the height of rudeness considering the noise such games made. Instead, she looked back at Rick. “Don’t suppose you have any lorebooks or ancient tomes with info on the ghosts you guys have fought, do you?”

“Ahh…” Rick scratched at his neck, stood, grabbed a blocky old laptop from behind the counter, and set it on the table near Erika. “Got a self-hosted wiki,” he said as he logged in and slid it toward her.

“Wikis. The grimoire of the modern era.”

“Something like that,” Rick said, sitting back in his seat. He thumped his head against the cardboard boxes, resting against it the same way someone from Erika’s high school would.

She took that as her cue to be quiet and started browsing the wiki he had opened on the Linux laptop.

The first thing she noticed was that it wasn’t particularly well organized. There was no list of monsters or even a catalogue of outings they had been on. Erika ended up browsing through the list of recently changed pages. The most recent were the monsters she had seen, the wizard and the robot, but both pages were practically blank. Before that was the poltergeist he mentioned.

Poltergeist

A paranormal entity often associated with violent disturbances, such as objects being hurled, doors slamming, and disembodied knocks or footsteps. The entity we encountered fits with that description perfectly, though it doesn’t quite capture the violence with which it assailed us.

Indicators

• Electrostatic charge in the air. EMF readers maxed out.
• *Corrupted analog audio and video recorders (static)
• Disturbed digital audio and video recorders (film grain-like effect)
• Movement of physical equipment and items with considerable force.
  • Flung a blender (3414 grams) with an estimated force of 35 newtons

Soothings

We tried all the typical methods of calming and excising such beings. Burning incense and smudge sticks were ineffective, as were Christian religious implements such as crosses, spoken bible verses, and holy water. Salt contained the entity, allowing us to safely investigate the room. Eventually, I realized that one object wasn’t being flung around—a simple cutting board with an odd rune carved into it, face down. Deducing the cutting board as a fetter and destroying it (fire) dissipated the ghost.

Conclusion

Not a fun entity to encounter. Almost got a meat skewer through the eye. Sofia did get a minor cut on her arm. Makeshift shields, padded clothes, or outright armor help.

Evidence

• Video footage – digital – (few thrown objects)
• Audio footage – digital – (pained screaming – “Release me” repeated several times; backmasked)
• Photographs
  • Trashed room 1
  • Trashed room 2
  • Trashed room 3
  • Fetter (cutting board, intact)
  • Fetter (cutting board, destroyed)
  • Rune close-up
    • Rune resembles the typical occult symbol of Lilith, except made with five crosses in unequal radius around the center with a curled tail dangling off the center point.

Encounters

• 2199 W. Potomac Ave – discovered by Sofia shortly after purchasing a home. No known stigmatized property in vicinity, no previous records of hauntings or disturbances. Fetter with rune implies intent; Sofia claims not to know where the cutting board came from.

Erika took a moment to navigate the unfamiliar operating system, ensuring the computer was muted, before clicking the link for the video footage.

A full-screen video popped up, tinged green like some kind of night vision mode was active, with tons of little white dots appearing, though not enough to obstruct what was going on. A fairly open kitchen looked like a tornado had torn through the place. Pots and pans were scattered about, kitchen knives and the block they were supposed to be in stuck out of drawers and cabinets, and water was splashed all over the place.

Something whipped through the screen, left to right. Erika had to go back and scrub through the video to see that it was a spatula. It came from out of frame however, and could easily have been someone just throwing it. So did the soap dispenser, popping up from behind the kitchen counter. Then Erika noticed the heavy-looking blender sitting next to the stove. Knowing from the notes that it had been thrown at some point, she kept a careful eye on it, ignoring other bits of movement.

Erika jolted back as, without warning, the blender came straight at the camera. The image froze just before the blender struck. She waited a moment for it to continue, only to realize that the blender must have damaged the camera. There wasn’t any more to the video.

Frowning to herself, Erika watched the video again before browsing out to the next most recent adventure of theirs, which had a few more videos. All were somehow more dull. The poltergeist video had the most action. This one was all just empty shots of a vacant building. Once or twice, she saw Anna walking around, waving beeping devices, or Rick deploying a ring of salt from big burlap sacks. None of it looked any different than the kinds of videos posted online that ended up decried as hoaxes. She wanted to see a ghost, not Leslie jumping in surprise when his elbow bumped into the water canteen at his hip.

Erika peered over the top of the laptop, now frowning at Rick. The man was completely asleep, head down and snoring lightly. The reports were at least competently written. It seemed like they could handle themselves if what she was reading aligned with reality.

But could they really? These ghosts didn’t seem that dangerous. At least not the two she had read about. Sure, flying knives might be something to take note of, but they were a far cry from someone being able to teleport around.

Feeling the weight of the gun in her right pocket and the bullets in her left—she had loaded a magazine after watching several instructional videos but was keeping it all separate for now, for safety’s sake—Erika wasn’t sure that she could handle herself. But she had to do this. She wanted backup, but not if she was going to end up getting them killed.

Pushing to investigate so soon, without any preparation, might not have been the wisest idea. But surely they would have turned her down if they didn’t think they could handle it.

Before Erika could check out more of the wiki, the door thumped open.

Erika jolted at the noise, but Rick bolted to his feet. He had his arm out, extended toward the door. In it, he held a sword. Some old Roman-looking thing, short and stubby with hardly a handguard to speak of. Steel had been welded to the stubs of the handguard, forming a clamp that held the black leather and bronze scabbard in place.

Leslie stood in the doorway, still wearing that camo-hunter coat. A small beret covered his head and he had a small sack slung over one shoulder.

“Jesus,” Rick grumbled, sagging in place as he ran his empty hand down his face. He stared downward, face blank, for a brief moment before the sword in his hand seemed to startle him. He quickly grabbed the cardboard shipping tube from the floor, shoved the sword into it, and slammed the white plastic cap down on the end.

Erika hadn’t even seen him draw it.

“Damn near gave me a heart attack.”

“You were sleeping?” Leslie said, frowning behind his beard as he stepped into the room, surveying its occupants. “Where’re the others? Thought they’d be here by now.”

“They were,” Erika started, only to pause and look at Rick. As the new person to the group, one who barely knew these two and really didn’t know the other two at all, she should probably leave the explanations to Rick.

He picked up without blinking, sitting back in his seat as he spoke. “Sofia hitched a ride with Anna, but decided she didn’t want to break into a church. Worried about damnation or something. Anna took her home, but she should be back…” He trailed off, looking at his wristwatch.

Erika quickly checked the time on the computer. Ten to midnight.

“Anna should have been here by now,” Rick said, frowning. He fished a phone out of his pocket and tried dialing a number.

Unsuccessfully, judging by the look on his face.

“She wouldn’t answer if she was on her motorcycle, would she?” Erika asked.

“No, but…” He tapped a few times on his phone, staring at the screen for a long moment. “But she isn’t on the roads,” he eventually said.

“You track her phone?” Erika said, narrowing her eyes as she wondered if Anna knew he did that.

He must have heard the accusation in her tone. “We all track each other—”

“Not me,” Leslie said.

“Those of us willing to carry modern phones track each other,” he corrected, shooting Leslie a dirty look before fiddling with his phone once again. “Anna and Sofia are together. Not at Sofia’s house.”

“If they were in trouble, they would have sent a message,” Leslie said.

“Unless they couldn’t…” Rick trailed off, looking from Leslie to Erika and back.

“Then we load up.” Leslie turned back to the door. “Find out what went wrong.”

“Right,” Rick said, standing with his cardboard-hidden-sword in hand. He paused, looking at Erika. “Sorry.”

“No, I understand.”

“We’ll be back or I’ll send a text—”

“No need,” Erika said, standing as well. “You aren’t leaving me behind.”