North County Paranormal Unit Chapter 7
James had a wide smile on his face as Gabriella walked into the North County headquarters a few nights later. “You ready?” he asked her.
“Ready for what?”
“For your first field case?”
Gabriella stopped short next to the doorway, one shoe half off as she looked at him. “Seriously?”
James nodded, still grinning. “We’ve got something over on the Fitchburg line. Entities in an old house. The family got in touch with the Foundation and they want us over there. Should be a simple cleansing, maybe a little bit of shadow people action.”
Had a gallon of adrenaline just dumped itself directly into her veins? Gabriella tried to pull her shoe back on, but her hands were shaking as she did so. “Um, yeah,” she said, trying to slow her suddenly racing heart. “Yeah, great.”
James clearly saw straight through her attempt at calm because he squeezed her shoulder as she stood back up. “It’s going to be fine,” he said. “You’re going to be mostly observing tonight anyway. It’ll be you, me, and Amelia in the field with Robin, Madelyn and Bradley supporting us from base. And seriously, it’s like herbs and chanting. So don’t be nervous, it’s going to go great.”
She nodded, unconvinced. But his easy smile made her feel better. That was the same face that had cheered her up after falling off the monkey bars as a kid or getting in a fight with her mom as a teenager. So if James said it would be fine, it was going to be fine.
A few minutes later, they were all sitting in the living room. Bradley had a presentation going on the computer monitor while the others sat on the couches like a strange Thanksgiving day football game scene.
“Alright, so the activity is primarily focused on the basement, but the owners report that there have been signs of it in the mudroom over here as well,” Bradley said from behind the standing desk with his laptop on it.
He used the cursor to circle a section of the blueprint he was presenting. The basement was marked with several ghost emojis and as he clicked on the mudroom, another appeared there.
“I talked to Father McEnerney and he’s on standby if we need him,” Bradley continued, his voice all business despite the ghosts smiling on his screen. “But the Foundation says they think this is a pretty open and shut case. Their people went through and did all the energy readings and actual investigating. So we’re just on cleanup duty. Any questions? No? Good.”
Amelia had been starting to raise her hand, but she rolled her eyes and lowered it back down. Bradley ignored her. “Robin is apparently off tonight. He left the directions as well as the report from the Foundation.”
“Robin’s not here?” James asked.
Bradley gestured around the room with his eyebrows raised and James held up his hands in surrender. “Just asking, geez.”
“He left me with all the prep work and apparently James is running the field team,” Bradley said. “So let’s just get this over with.”
James stood up and went to the front of the room. “Thank you, Bradley, for that informative and charismatic presentation.”
Gabriella shot a quick glance at Bradley, who was taking James’s previous spot. He was very obviously ignoring James. Clearly not caring, James moved on.
“Okay,” he said. “So two teams: field and support. Madelyn and Bradley are on home support tonight. Mads, how are you feeling?”
“Well enough to sit at a computer,” Madelyn said, her voice surprisingly light.
“Don’t push too hard,” James said. “If you start feeling it’s too much or you need to go lay down, tell Bradley. If and when that happens, Bradley’s going to shut the fuck up and take over the task.”
Bradley’s eyes flashed, but James kept going. “Amelia and Gabriella are with me on the scene. Gab, you’ll mostly be observing. Don’t take notes, I know you’re going to try. Just watch, jump in when you’re comfortable doing so, and we can regroup at the end of the night.”
Gabriella nodded, conscious of all the eyes on her. James nodded back. “A lot of it is going to be stuff the modules have covered, so keep an eye out and see what kinds of connections you can make to the training material,” he continued. “Sounds hokey, but I swear it helps.”
He turned toward the others. “Also,” he said. “I want to take as many energy readings as possible while we’re there. I don’t know if this fits the Foundation’s current pet project, but if there’s some kind of strange energy crisis we need to be aware of later, I want the details as soon as possible.”
“I’ll be on visuals all night,” Bradley said. “Send the energy readings straight to me and I can forward them off.”
Amelia nodded. “Got it.”
“Alright,” James said. “Let’s get packed up and head out.”
He started walking toward the dining room-slash-prep station right off the living room and Gabriella got up to follow him. Several backpacks and piles of supplies were scattered over the long table in the center of the small room. On first glance, she could see several blades, a vial of holy water, and at least three pounds of salt in baggies.
Gabriella couldn’t help but take a second to marvel at the fact that there was still a dining room table here at all. The kitchen she could understand, and even the living room furniture at least served a purpose. But keeping a dining room table in this room seemed like a commitment to the bit at this point. Why this strange blend of home furnishings and professional headquarters?
“What’s up?”
James’s voice broke her out of her thoughts. “Just looking at the table,” Gabriella said with a small laugh. “I never expected a ghost hunting headquarters to look like Auntie Jen’s house.”
James laughed too. “Yeah, the Foundation bought the house at auction years ago with most of the furnishings still inside, and they just kind of stayed. I think like once a year we consider clearing it out, but Bradley just likes that taste of home a little too much.”
“Or I know I’ll be the only person actually doing any of the clearing out,” Bradley snapped from behind them.
James smirked at Gabriella. “Anyway, let me help you get prepped,” he said, ignoring Bradley. “Do you remember the module about house hauntings? What do you need to bring?”
Gabriella thought for a second, then picked up a vial of holy water and a pocket Bible. James nodded, then motioned for her to continue. She glanced at the table, then grabbed a small bag of salt.
“Good!” James said. “We’ll get you a knife too.”
Gabriella nodded as she put the supplies in a worn backpack. Then she zipped it shut and slung it over her shoulder. “Alright, I think I’m ready,” she said.
***
After a few weeks on the job, Gabriella wasn’t surprised when they got outside and climbed into an old black van instead of a sleek SUV. James slid into the driver’s seat and Amelia silently offered Gabriella the shotgun seat. A fierce internal debate ensued in the next second as Gabriella tried to determine whether accepting or refusing would be the rude choice. Finally, Amelia decided for her by sliding the back door open and getting in.
“So this is our mobile headquarters,” James said with a laugh as the van wheezed alive. “It gets us from point A to point B, but that’s about it.”
Gabriella glanced back into the middle and back rows of the van. Amelia sat in the middle with their backpacks beside her and the back seat had a few unidentifiable boxes stacked on it. But there didn’t seem to be any kind of wild technology.
“It doesn’t fly or anything,” Amelia added. “In fact, it barely drives. But it’s like the computers, we have to use Foundation property or we risk losing funding for it.”
“Wait, they just won’t pay?” Gabriella asked, turning forward in her seat.
James’s smile was wry as he pulled onto the highway. “The Foundation cares about the work we do, but the main office cares almost even more about cutting costs.”
“Which is ridiculous, they’re loaded,” Amelia added from the backseat. “They push this idea that they need to have money in the bank in case something big comes up. But, like…”
She gestured around them. “They literally give us exactly what they think we need and it doesn’t get updated. So there’s always too little money and noise about taking more away when we clearly don’t need it.”
“That’s so weird,” Gabriella said.
James shrugged. “That’s them,” he said. “Bradley does most of our admin work, including paying the bills. I don’t know how he does it, but he manages.”
Gabriella thought back to the conversation she’d accidentally witnessed between Bradley and Robin. How long could they last like that?
But that wasn’t her problem to deal with right now. Here in this rattling van, she needed to prepare for her first professional house cleansing.
