Roses Manor, Weston Chapter 3
The game was, in fact, as simple as they had expected from the case file. It required a login, but didn’t ask for any personal details. Just an email and password. Gabriella quickly made a new email account just for the game, which was accepted with no issues.
After a few minutes to create the account, the game itself finally opened to reveal a blocky forest with birds flying between the trees. As she began to play, the design reminded her a lot of the old Super Mario World game. Her father had played that when she was a kid, hammering on the game controller while Gabriella laughed and laughed at the poor Mario as he fell in the lava. Now she moved through a simple side-scroller, walking along a nearly bare path until she reached a glowing rose in the road ahead. When she got to the rose, she walked into it and the screen blinked.
ONE ROSE
“That can’t be it,” Gabriella said. “Want me to move on to the next level?”
Madelyn looked up from the case notes. “I think we should be very careful with it,” she said. “So no, let’s call it quits on the actual game for the moment.”
She had a fair point. Even though it had only been about fifteen minutes of actual game play, Ezekiel Thomas’s failing heart was on Gabriella’s mind now. He’d played it for a month, but who knew the actual mechanism that made him sick?
“This will sound stupid,” Gabriella said. “But do you think we should take any steps while we’re doing this? To keep our hearts safe? I know it was cardiac arrest, and that’s different, but my father died of a heart attack when I was a kid.”
It was different. And there was no history of heart problems in her family beyond what was likely stress, lifestyle, and bad luck on her dad’s end. Thinking about her dad still hurt, but between that and the various magical protections on headquarters, Gabriella wasn’t too concerned about her own health as long as they were smart about it.
“I’m sorry,” Madelyn said. “Yeah, let’s check with James.”
James would probably be okay with Gabriella continuing on the case as long as she was careful. And as long as Bradley wasn’t currently on the same planet as James, he’d probably be fine to discuss all of this right now. Gabriella stood up and stretched, leaving the laptop open on the bed. But then she looked at it. “I hate not knowing what’s going on.”
“Sign out completely,” Madelyn said. “Log out, clear your history, clear your cache. And don’t use this computer for anything else. Keep it in headquarters, obviously. With all the protections we have on this place, anything coming out of the game should be caught completely or weakened. So if there’s something paranormal coming in through the computer, this is the best place to keep it, though I know you’re smart enough to not bring things home from this job. I’d rather we’re overkill than overlook something really simple and get in trouble.”
Once the computer was safely stowed on the dresser, closed and cleared off as much as possible, Gabriella headed out to talk to James while Madelyn went to call Graham. When she got out to the living room, James had a headset on and was clearly still doing communications for Amelia and Bradley.
“I don’t see anything on your camera,” he said as Gabriella sat down at the computer diagonally across from him. “Look behind the altar.”
She didn’t hear whatever the other person said, but judging by his relaxed laugh in response, it had to be Amelia on the other end. “I mean, the old people will generally genuflect before they go up there.” A pause. “It’s like kneeling, like a quick kneel. But you’re not Catholic, so the ghosts will have to deal with it.” Another pause. “Oh yeah, they’d love that. McEnerney tells the Catholic Church to shove it, then shows back up to fix yet another problem they can’t solve.”
He spun a pencil in his fingers, looked over at Gabriella, and smiled. “Great,” he said. “Yeah, wrap that up and come on back. Where’s- ah, okay.”
Gabriella checked her email yet again as he wrapped up the case with Amelia. Then he signed off and took off his headphones. “Alright, church is all but done,” he said. “She’s going back later today to cleanse it, then we’ll be finished there. You guys have the game, then I’m figuring out the order for the next ones. There’s a field nearby that we have to check, actually. Remember the one with the lights forever ago?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Are they back?”
That case had been fascinating, and Gabriella wouldn’t mind going back and seeing them again. It’d be colder than the last time, but maybe glowing orbs dancing over a snowy field would be beautiful enough to make up for being freezing and drowning in sleet.
“I’m not sure,” James admitted. “The Foundation is sending us back, but they might have just promised the property owner a two-year followup they’re getting out of the way early. Want to go?”
“Sure.”
“Great. It’s a daytime trip tomorrow, so you probably won’t see anything. But get me some readings and we’ll compare them to the old ones. For today…” He glanced above her shoulder, at the First Communion certificate on the wall behind her. “You’ve got the video game, which will probably take up a lot of the day-”
“Oh yeah, we’re doing that in pieces.”
“Why?”
He didn’t seem angry about it, but her face was heating up anyway. “Um, safety,” Gabriella said. “Since the guy that died might have been hurt by something in the game. The Foundation notes say it was some kind of physical effect that stopped his heart, but we don’t know what it was yet and we don’t want it to…”
She was making a mess of her explanation, but James listened intently and nodded as she didn’t so much finish as trail off in defeat. “Smart,” he said. “Okay. In that case, I know where I’m sending you and I’ll figure out something fun for Madelyn too.”
“Um, if I’m smart about it, can I stay on the case?”
James frowned at her. “Of course you can, Gabs,” he said. “Why- Oh, fuck, I just made the connection. I’m sorry to ask so bluntly, but was your dad cardiac arrest?”
“No, a heart attack,” she said, but he was still frowning at her and for a second, she was positive he was about to pull her.
“Is your physical up to date?” he asked.
“From December. I’ll be careful, I promise.”
He thought for a moment, eyes back on Brandon’s 1978 First Communion certificate. “Fine,” he said. “Keep an energy reader on at all times and stop if you think something is wrong.”
She nodded quickly. “Of course.”
“Alright,” he said, with a tired smile. “Thank you for coming to me.”
He glanced at his phone. “I don’t know if Graham’s coming back. Honestly, I want him to take the day off. I feel terrible that he found out about his student in a team meeting.”
A very unpleasant team meeting. She wasn’t going to say something, but apparently James picked up on her feelings. “Hey, I’m sorry about earlier,” he said. “I didn’t mean to be snippy when you asked about the paperwork in my office.”
“It’s fine,” she said.
He shook his head. “Nah, it wasn’t cool. It’s been a rough few days, but I shouldn’t have reacted like that.”
He’d said the same thing earlier too. “Anything you want to talk about?” Gabriella asked, knowing full well he was going to refuse.
And he did. “Nothing new,” he said. “And nothing I’m going to dump on you. Just kind of a rough week. And there’s some shit I should have addressed a while ago and didn’t.”
That was obviously whatever was happening with Bradley and he wasn’t going to tell her anything more about it. He’d fight with Bradley in front of her, though the two of them did that even when they were on great terms. But he wouldn’t share any deeper concerns with his little cousin, even if she could maybe help.
His phone buzzed and he looked at it, a smile quickly replacing at least some of the strain on his face. “Got a date?” Gabriella asked.
“Not tonight, no,” James said as he texted Meredith back. “She has some prep work to do for her program. I offered to bring her dinner, but she said she really can’t get away from it. It’s fine, though. I’d be a huge hypocrite if I got upset that she’s too busy for a date.”
He shrugged, then looked at his phone and laughed at whatever Meredith had said in reply.
Amelia and Bradley got back about ten minutes later. Bradley went straight to the computer, put on his glasses, and started typing without talking to anybody. Amelia went to get a cup of coffee and came back a minute later with one for James as well. “I’m going to head back in a little while,” she said. “He’s got the initial report going and once I get back, I’ll do the final. Do we really need an initial and a final if it’s all within one day?”
“I’m almost done with it,” Bradley said tersely from his computer.
“Fantastic,” James said dryly.
“It’s my job.”
This was a fun little recurring thing they were doing. Gabriella could almost piece together what had happened. “Yeah, it is,” James said. “Being a fucking asshole to me isn’t though.”
Gabriella looked over at Amelia, who rolled her eyes. “Oh, and it’s yours?” Bradley said, not looking at him. “So fucking high and mighty that you can’t be bothered to fill out some forms. You think they were my idea?”
“And I had sixteen other things on my list to do before I could even look at anything else, but you were up my ass about them,” James snapped. “And nothing was going to change if they weren’t done right that minute. Nothing was going to change if I never fucking got to them.”
“Except for the fact that the Foundation would keep hounding me for them until you did,” Bradley said as he printed his report. The printer came to life and the paper came halfway out. Then it jammed with the same grinding noise as earlier. “So I can’t get my work done until you do yours.”
“And you had nothing else you could be doing?” James demanded as he went over and tugged on the jammed paper. “Nothing important? The forms don’t matter.”
“Until they do!”
“Guys!” Amelia barked.
James was holding the ink smeared, half-printed report in his hand as he and Bradley glared at each other. “Knock it off,” Amelia snapped. “I’m, like, three seconds away from reporting a hostile work environment because I’m so fucking sick of listening to this.”
Don’t laugh, Gabriella told herself. Do not laugh. No matter how much you kind of want to.
Neither of them yelled at Amelia, not that they would have dared. But they had also stopped sniping at each other. “Thank you,” Amelia said. “Okay, I’m going to eat lunch and then go do the follow up. James, do you want me to bring anyone with me?”
“No,” James said. “I’ll be on comms.”
“Great. Thank you. I love it. I’m going to do that, then send in the final report by the end of the day. Bradley’s finishing the initial report now. He’s going to email it to you, you’re going to receive it, and you’ll both. Shut. The Fuck. Up.”
She went into the kitchen and Gabriella followed, only partially to get some coffee for herself. Amelia went into the fridge and pulled out a tupperware of salad. She shook her head and scoffed. “How’s your thing going?” she asked as she opened her lunch.
“Fine,” Gabriella replied.
She gave Amelia the short version of the story as she poured her coffee. Someone other than Bradley had made this batch, so it was drinkable, but she poured in some skim milk anyway. “We’re taking a break, so James is putting me on another case this afternoon,” she said.
“Oh, I think I know which one. It’ll be a trip, have fun with it.”
The smile wasn’t completely a smirk, but still suspicious. “What is it?” Gabriella asked.
Amelia shrugged, fully smirking now. “Oh, come on,” Gabriella protested. “Is it the library one?”
“Yeah, it’s the library one!” James called in.
She glanced back at Amelia. “What the fuck happened in the library and why are you all so happy about it?”
“You said you like libraries,” Amelia said with a far too casual shrug.
***
Ghost porn. They were being sent to a nearby public library to deal with ghost porn. Apparently the computers were being inundated with one particular pornographic video and it was the favorite of an old creep who had actually died at his usual computer station a year earlier.
And now Gabriella got the pleasure of dealing with this case with Bradley. “At least we have the buddy system for this,” she said, apparently feeling bold as she drove them away from headquarters.
“Don’t fucking start,” Bradley muttered.
She glanced at the directions displayed on her phone, which was secured in the phone holder they’d finally installed in the van. “I worked as a page in the library in college,” she said. “There was so much porn all the fucking time. You get numb to it, eventually.”
“Yeah.”
“You okay?”
She didn’t expect the same gentle dismissal she’d gotten from James. More like a snarling refusal to answer. But he just shrugged sharply and looked out the passenger side window. “Fine.”
The library was a few towns away, so they were stuck in this van with each other for about half an hour. Bradley didn’t say a word for the first fifteen minutes, just watched the trees going by on Route Two.
Madelyn was on comms already, though she was working on Sixteen Roses while Gabriella drove to the library. “I’m looking through some of the social media posts,” she said as Gabriella slowed down for a traffic jam ahead. “I know Charlotte said that there wasn’t a lot out there, but this game blew up over the past year. Not to the point where it’s getting mainstream attention, but I’m seeing a lot of posts talking about it.”
“What are they saying?” Gabriella asked.
“Not much,” Madelyn said with a laugh. “It’s like there’s this unspoken code to drop cryptic hints and be as smug about it as possible.”
“I wonder if that’s part of the game,” Gabriella said. “Like an advertising campaign.”
“Maybe,” Madelyn said, not sounding fully convinced. “I did find one guy saying that he got locked out after using the code on the official website. I have no idea what that means, but we’ll keep that in mind.”
“Maybe that’s what happened to the victim,” Gabriella said.
“This guy is still alive,” Madelyn replied. “But he’s saying he couldn’t log back in, it erased his whole account. And when he tried to make another, he couldn’t. And I mean, at all. I thought maybe it was because he was still on the same IP address. But he’s got this entire thread saying he tried in three different countries and had his mom try too. And nothing. There’s no tech connection that I can find. Maybe there’s something, but I’m doubtful.”
“You think it’s the game? Like whatever makes it fatal also chased this guy across countries to keep him from playing?”
“Maybe.”
“Could we focus on the case we’re actually on?” Bradley snapped.
“What did you want to discuss about it?” Gabriella asked.
“I don’t care.”
Right. Saying anything back was going to start a fight and Gabriella wasn’t going there. On the comms, Madelyn was quiet too. But only for a minute.
“I’m excited to see what video the ghost is playing,” she said pleasantly.
Gabriella laughed, but Bradley just looked out the window.
***
Things had been so bad that the library staff had shut down all the computers, but this didn’t stop the randy old ghost from turning them on and posting his favorite video again. But just like the church case, this one was surprisingly simple. After a quick cleansing and an hour of hanging around the library to make sure that nothing else happened and the readings remained the same, they were completely done. “It seems like they’re all kind of in and out cases today,” Gabriella commented as they were walking out to the van.
Madelyn laughed, and she could tell the cough beside her was Bradley hiding an extremely reluctant smile. “Shut up,” she muttered. “I just mean…God dammit.”
By the time they got back to headquarters, Graham was back for the evening shift. James had left and Gabriella was just about done with her shift too. Tomorrow she’d be back on the video game and figure out this next level. Level Two, Rose Two probably? That would be the pattern. So sixteen levels to the game. But sixteen days was a long time to drag out a case. Maybe they could just be cautious, but not overly so, and shoot for a few levels a day?
Apparently Madelyn was in the same mindset. When Gabriella got home, there was a text waiting on her phone.
MADELYN
I’m thinking levels 2 3 4 tomorrow?
