Boo
Grim hadn’t meant to spend his afternoon harassing a pair of memey ghost hunters- he had been camping out in Elmwood Asylum just to take care of the usual. Most asylum head honchos were sadistic sons of b*tches, and didn’t always f*ck off after kicking the bucket.
Mr. Bradley Gardner had been one such case, leading to his early morning of waking up in his sleeping bag to a small audience (the nurse, Amelia, a lovely young woman whose noose still hung around her neck, kept trying to get him to sleep in one of the ancient cots. Old maternal instincts die hard or whatever) before heading over to Gardener’s office to clean out shop.
Here’s the thing: he can’t force a spirit to move on to the afterlife. But he sure can say, box them into a one by one foot space with a portal to not-here open on one side, armed with a phone and earbuds.
Gardener rapidly went through the different stages of annoyance, from yelling, to trying to out-annoy him (something Kala had trained him for since she had met him) before finally a weird sort of sulking phase while he listed out the man’s sins. Embarrassed, shamed, and still mildly furious, the old unpleasant gentlemen floated with a huff through the portal.
He sighed in relief; that had been quite draining. He had eaten his way through three meals just from six to now, around noon. He packed up the stuff he had used for the impromptu ritual and meditated for a while to recharge in a marginally cleaner ward.
Then the camera crew showed up, and he knew things were about to get weird.
He recognized the two stars, of course. Ryan Begara and Shane Madej. The show would have been right up his alley had he not been able to see the anguished faces of the spirits they were talking to. (Sometimes a ghost did play along and that was funny, but mostly it was just tired people who were in pain or confused being harassed.)
Amelia was frantic when he warned her, bustling around giving people comfort items and blankets and pep-talks. The next few hours were going to be hard. He offered to open another portal, but was refused based on the whole portal-to-the-unknown thing. Even though most of these guys were old enough to be Christian or otherwise majorly religious, the bright, unyielding light was still unnerving.
He nodded, and found himself a good hiding place.
The thing was, this camera crew were damn good. Creative, too. He originally went to a smaller bedchamber before they set up a motion camera in there and ditched, then several other similar cases, gave up on the idea of playing tag in the corridors, tried setting up a closet to be workable for a few hours (he could hang out on some musty shelves for the night, easy) before realizing the door’s lock was jammed so it would swing open randomly, so that was a no-go.
When the two chuckleheads actually began their tour he was running out of ideas. He got the bright idea to hide on the roof of the elevator and just be really quiet and still when it was in use, and nearly had a heart attack when they went to the top floor and nearly squashed him. Kala had to un-corporealize him, and warming back up in the drafty rooms and hallways was harder than one would think.
So here he was, hanging out in the side ward, praying they wouldn’t walk in. It was one of the spookier-looking rooms, what with Amelia not trying to clean it as often as the main area so it was pretty disgusting, but of course Madej was exactly the kind of d*ck to triple-dog-dare whatever Bergara to go a full minute in the same room as him. In the dark, with motion-sensing and heat-sensing cameras strapped to him.
Of course, Bergera couldn’t see any of those, he was stuck with his regular old cr*ppy human eyes until the crew on the bottom floor went through the tapes afterwards, but still. He debated letting the camera roll, and ditching through a window or something for a day or two to come back and finish cleaning up shop later, before deciding against it. Nah, let’s have some fun with this.
He was done anxiously dodging figures through hallways and rooms; let’s have a good time with this.
As soon as the door clicked shut behind Ryan, though, the guy was immediately starting to lose it.
“Okay. If anyone’s here, could I ask for you to show yourself, give a sign?” What, did he think ghosts glow or something? He’d be lucky if one of them formed a shadow with how wrung-out they were from the emotional rollercoaster of that morning, let alone turned into a living (nonliving? Wait no, sentient, that’s the word) glowstick.
He slid out from his spot under a cot easy enough and got to his feet just fine. “Rude, man. Deaths are like, the most traumatic things to ever happen to you. Why not like, ask for a name?”
And of course he screamed. Like, scream screamed. Grim winced and covered his ears on instinct, then turned on his flashlight. When the ragged breathing came back. He turned on his flashlight to start things going.
“Chill, man. Hi, you’re that Ryan Bergara from Buzzfeed Unsolved, right?’
The man stared at him, before slowly nodding. He probably needed to catch his breath.
“I-yeah.”
“Cool. I’m Grim. Sorry ‘bout this I’ve been camping here.”
Bergara blinked. “You-what? You’re living here?”
Grim shrugged. That wasn’t a bad idea, actually. He could work with that. “Yeah, it’s pretty decent if you avoid the vandals and party kids. Very private. You doing an investigation?”
Bergara made a strangled noise before getting his sh*t together and responding. “I- shit. Yeah, yeah we are. I’m here with Shane to check this place out.” he started laughing. “Damn, you freaked me out, man.” He turned on his own flashlight, his breathing finally starting to even out again.
Grim snorted in response. “Yeah, whatever. I debated waiting for you guys to leave the room and going out the window and leaving the mystery of whatever the f*ck was under that bed to you guys during editing, but like, nah.”
“So you’re homeless?”
“No.” He said with a completely straight face. "Investigation, yes, no."
Bergara blinked a couple of time now. “I-maybe? You know this place well? Seen anything?”
Grim chuckled to himself. “You could say that.”
Bergara perked up some. “Could we do an interview?”
He considered that. He’d have to be cryptic when he told the truth, obviously, but he could probably mess with them quite a bit.
“Hm. Could you pay me?”
“Uh…” He rifled through his jean pockets, pulling out some pocket change and a stick of gum. “I’ve got gum?”
Grim smiled, just a bit. “I’ll take gum. Can I have that dollar coin?”
“Yeah, sure, kid. Here, come and meet Shane, he’ll love you.”
Shane was a delight. They had similar vibes when vaguely uncomfortable, Shane from his surroundings (though he was never admit it) and Grim from the company, so it went well. He even managed to weasel a small pack of gummy bears out of the guy, which he pocketed.
They brought him back down to the visitor’s area (it had been a mental asylum, not a disease one. The visitor ward was small, but much more welcoming than the cracked and dusty brick maze upstairs) for the interview.
There were some ancient armchairs by the windows, so they set up there.
“Alright, fair warning. The more you bribe me the more honest I’ll be. Not just money, too.”
Shane snorted, and went through his bag. “I’ve got a snicker’s bar.”
“That’s currency where I come from, man. Thanks.” He plucked the bar from the man’s hand and also pocketed it.
Ryan groaned. “At this rate we won’t have anything else. What else do you want, my lunch?”
“Sure. We could order fast food. You think dominos will deliver out here? It’s a bit far out.” Shane cracked up, and Ryan sighed and motioned for the camera guy, a nice bloke who had yet to introduce himself but smiled along with his jokes, to start rolling.
“Alright. Welcome back, and we return with our surprise guest.” He gestured to Grim, who went along with it.
He threw up a peace sign with a grin. “‘Sup.”
“Grim, whose been camping out in this place for a while. Now, why on earth would you want to do that?”
Grim shrugged. “I ain’t scared of dust, man. The worst thing here is the wind, and the occasional drunk weirdo. It’s pretty private, I can do my own thing.”
“Your parents let you do that?”
His parents were dead, and he had yet to find them. They didn’t exactly have a vote.
“Yeah, they’re pretty chill.” It was summer right now, so spending days at a time away from the outside world was more plausible than it would be in like, fall. He was really lucking out right now.
Ryan hummed, clearly not totally buying it, but willing to move along. Good enough for him. “Alright, and you said you’ve seen things.”
“Depends. Can we call that pizza guy?” Ryan groaned, and Shane cackled.
They did end up calling the pizza guy.
Armed with a cheese pizza, they got back into things.
“So, any sightings? Apparitions, strange sudden voices, shadows without anyone there?” Oh boy, here we go.
He hummed, considering what to tell them. They had been really damn nice, but he didn’t want to look like a nut in front of thousands of people.
And of course, his main goal was to get these guys satisfied and out the door as soon as possible. If that meant putting the focus on him to give them content instead of stressing out the skeleton (hah) staff upstairs, so be it.
“The main office, I think the old owner of like, big boss of whatever? There was like, a weird voice in there. A guy, older, middle-aged. And no, I’m not high or whatever.” The office was clear- no one would want to be in there with all the bad memories still attached. So these chuckleheads were free to do their little interview to an empty room.
“Where have you been in here? There’s different hot-spots in the building, like the operating theatres and morgue. That’s all authentic stuff from way back then, you know?”
Of course he knew- he could see the shimmery sheen from a dead person’s trail all over the place, but real thick on most of the cots, and especially the slabs in the morgue. The path from the wards to that room glowed lowly with faded neon.
“Look, I’m ballsy, but you think I’m sleeping in the dead-people box room? H*ll no.” In reality most of the people rattling around in their were pretty nice, if a bit loopy off of either years on drugs or shaky mental health. He had spent yesterday afternoon introducing them to board games. They were more likely to be able to touch stuff since they were literally right next to what they were tied to in death, like Nurse Amelia and her noose. (He kinda wanted to ask how she eventually got down but held his tongue. That was logically incredibly rude and upsetting to ask the harried woman, so no thanks.)
But Ryan nodded along, seemingly checking something off on a mental checklist. “Well, we can check out the office again. We went in there briefly for the tour for the history segment but we didn’t do a full session or anything.” Oh good, full steam ahead.
He nommed on the pizza briefly, and was mildly relieved when Shane butted in. “So you’re a Boogera, then?”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Boogera or Shaniac- you agree with ghosts existing or no, me or him.”
“Yeah, then, whatever. Boogera, sure. I don’t not believe in ghosts. You know, I’m open.” That would probably be his stance if his senses hadn’t decided to be overachievers, he thought.
He purposefully didn’t look at Kala, who was pouting at him from her spout floating idly ovr Shane’s head, occasionally poking him or waving a hand in front of his face.
“Ay!” He and Ryan shared a high five, which wasn’t too weird. These guys were a bit excitable, but so were the Horsemen, so.