Jarvis Street Chapter 4
By ten that night, Amelia had kicked James out of headquarters. She and Madelyn were on tonight, everything would be fine. So James reluctantly went home to bed. He managed to get about five hours of sleep that night. In between nightmares of approaching Robin’s smashed car, he woke up three times, tempted to call Amelia to make sure everything was okay.
Finally, at four AM, James woke up and knew immediately that he was up for the day. He lay in his bed, staring up at the shitty plaster ceiling of his bedroom, trying to breathe and just focus on that for a moment. It lasted all of thirty seconds before he remembered he was to expect a phone call from Branch Management, and it was probably going to be to chew him out for what happened on the case. They might float disciplinary action against Amelia too, which he’d have to fight because that was bullshit. Accidents happened in the field and the doctor had already said that Bradley would be fine. So he just had to get through the yelling and then he could focus on whatever came next.
The schedule. He needed to make the month’s schedule and apparently just reusing this month’s was a no-go. That should be simple enough. He just had to find time to sit down and do it. Oh, and check on the reimbursement receipt from Amelia. And confirm all the follow-up reports of cases over the past month.
There were so many of them. How? How was this place so goddamn haunted? Before he’d left last night, James had seen an email come in about the new case arriving in the morning, along with the training guide for investigation. The training was good, though he had no idea if that was going to be a full training program or a PDF from some book published in 1969. With the Foundation, it could go either way.
But he knew the captaincy training modules he was waiting on wouldn’t be arriving. Last time he’d called, he’d gotten a curt response that things were exceptionally busy, so he needed to wait and be patient. They would arrive in time.
At least payroll was running fine. That, at the very least, would keep them all paid. As patient as the others were being with him, he didn’t see that lasting if he stopped getting them their paychecks.
James got up, stretched, and dug through the clean laundry on his dresser for a towel. He didn’t need to be in until his shift started at seven, but he might as well go in early and tackle some of that work.
As he walked out of his bedroom and toward the kitchen, he saw his roommate Graham was already up and dressed. “Morning!” Graham called to him.
Graham was a few years younger than James. He was short and stocky with dark skin and short hair. He worked as an adjunct professor at the same college where their case had gone so poorly yesterday. Graham had been looking for roommates about three years ago and James had happened to be looking for a place to live. They weren’t the closest friends, even now, but they got along great and hit that ideal balance of looking out for each other while respecting each other’s privacy.
James nodded good morning to him. “Hey.”
“What time did you get home last night?” Graham asked. “I thought I heard the door.”
James huffed a laugh. “God, don’t ask,” he said. “Late. We had some things go wrong and I was there cleaning up for hours.”
Graham thought that James’s work was focused on historical preservation, not the paranormal. So did their other roommate, Christopher. And for the most part, James was happy to let them think that. He didn’t know what they thought of the paranormal, but neither of them were particularly woo-woo people, so he’d figured he had a pretty good idea of what their reaction would be if he came home talking about ghosts and cryptids every day.
Graham shook his head. “Damn,” he said. “Hopefully things chill out today.”
“I hope so.”
Then James remembered Graham had also been hating his own job lately. “How’s yours going?” he asked.
Graham shook his head again. “Nope,” he said. “But at least working at Cleary House has been fine. It’s just a side thing, but it keeps me sane.”
James had no idea what Cleary House was, but he nodded. “That’s good at least,” he said.
“Yeah. Hey, I have to get going. Are you working overnight again tonight?”
“Nope, I’ll be here.”
“Cool. Alright, have a good one.”
Graham hurried out of the house, grabbing his worn backpack on his way out the door. James headed toward the bathroom, hoping a hot shower would start the day off on the right track.
***
An hour later James was walking into Headquarters. As he stepped in, he immediately noticed the functioning air conditioning. After the soggy air outside, he could have cried with relief. He badly needed to get Amelia a raise.
“Just me!” he called up to Amelia as he closed and locked the door behind him.
There was a shuffling noise from the living room, then Amelia appeared at the top of the small staircase. “What are you doing here?” she asked. “The sun’s not even up yet.”
He shrugged, walking up the steps. “Woke up early so I figured I’d get ahead of some work while I was up.”
“That’s stupid.”
Her tone was light, but he could see the concern. “I’m fine, I swear,” James said. “I slept. How are you doing? And how did you get the AC running again?”
Amelia looked tired, but she smiled. “It just needed a deep clean,” she replied. “Nothing happened overnight, so I took it apart and cleaned it. And I’m fine, thanks. I made Madelyn take a break a little while ago. Oh, and Bradley spent the night.”
That really didn’t surprise James. In a better situation, three people on overnight was the ideal schedule anyway, according to the Foundation. “How’s he doing?” he asked.
Amelia shrugged. “Mad at me, mad at you, but not that mad because he forgot how to be mad for a while. I’m not waking him up though.”
“And Madelyn?”
“She says it’s not too bad, just a pain flare-up and the heat’s not helping,” Amelia replied. “She’s on today, we all are.”
James frowned. “Wait, you’re scheduled today? After twenty-four hours on?”
“Yeah.”
They were still wrapping up the last of the schedule Robin had approved, so James knew he shouldn’t blame himself, but he did anyway. “How about you go home?” he said.
“How about you screw off?”
He was surprised by the tension lacing her joke and judging by her expression, so was she. “Sorry,” Amelia said. “It’s just-”
James held up a hand. “It’s fine,” he said. “We’re all on edge. Go take a break at least. I’ll keep an eye on the phones, but bring the cordless phone in with you if it makes you feel better.”
Amelia nodded a little sheepishly, then picked up the phone off its cradle and walked back toward the bedrooms, leaving James alone as he considered what to work on first.
***
While James never felt weird about being in headquarters alone, it was an odd feeling to be here with three other people, all of them asleep in the bedrooms while he was up and working in the living room. It was a sign that he should also be asleep, but as tempting as the idea was, he wanted to get ahead of his work for the day. On top of the incident report for yesterday, he was going to have something coming in about the new case today and he should really learn how to work with the Foundation’s encryption software himself.
An hour and six YouTube tutorials later, James managed to reopen the email he’d struggled with yesterday. The report Madelyn had had to get him was now open on the computer, completely useless but encouraging. He’d figured this out on his own. Maybe there was hope if the Foundation decided they just weren’t going to train James at all.
Amelia was back out by six forty-five and Madelyn came gingerly walking out of the bedroom about two minutes later. “Hey,” James greeted them, pushing his chair back from the desk.
“Hi,” Madelyn said with a smile as she slowly shuffled into the room.
“How are you feeling?”
Madelyn laughed. “Crappy,” she said.
“Do you want to go home?”
She shook her head. “Honestly,” she said. “If I went home every time I felt lousy, I’d never leave my bed. I’m just going to take my meds and drink my coffee under my heating pad.”
She sounded sincere, so James let it go as she walked over to the couch and lowered herself onto it. A moment later, Amelia walked into the room, holding two mugs of coffee. “Want one?” she asked James as she handed one to Madelyn.
“Please,” James said.
She handed him the second, then walked back into the kitchen to get her own.
It almost felt like a sleepover, minus any fun at all. James sipped his coffee and worked through a painfully boring checklist of approvals that he at least understood. Amelia sat with a bowl of cereal at the loaded-up dining room table, watching videos on her phone as she ate. Madelyn was drinking coffee on the couch. And Bradley hadn’t come out of the back bedroom at all since James arrived.
“Has anyone checked if Bradley’s still breathing?” he asked eventually.
Amelia and Madelyn looked at each other. “Um, earlier?” Amelia said. “Like two AM.”
“Someone should check,” Madelyn added.
They all eyed each other and James briefly wondered if he could take them in the inevitable rock, paper, scissors game this decision would take. Then he remembered he was the boss.
“Fuck,” he mumbled. “Yeah, I’ll do it.”
The two women gave him solemn salutes as he stood up. James scowled at them, then made his way down the hall toward the back bedroom that Bradley usually claimed. He knocked lightly on the door. When there was no answer, he carefully slid it open.
The room was stuffy and hot, and James was tempted to open a window. Bradley was asleep, sprawled loosely under a thin sheet on the bed. He was clearly breathing, so James backed out of the room and closed the door again before he got caught.
“He’s alive,” he said as he got back into the living room.
“Thank God,” Madelyn said, sipping delicately from her mug. “Imagine the paperwork if you’d killed him?”
