So Much For Recon
It was evident that the Greenbergs hadn’t bothered to clean up the office after the Poltergeist incident. Furniture and papers and books were still thrown about, with only the desk in the corner having any kind of semblance to the concept of organization. It seemed that someone had tried to tidy it up, having cleaned off the surface just enough to be able to stack and arrange a few of the scattered pages. Lucy wasn’t sure what for, if they didn’t care enough to put away the rest of the mess.
It wasn’t really her business (and it was too dark for her to read the small script), so Lucy instead focused on what she was actually there for—the Visitor that had apparently caused the whole mess.
“Have you gotten anything, yet?” George called out from behind her, grunting as he set down the chains. She glanced over to catch a glimpse of annoyance on his face. “Because once you’re done, some help would be appreciated.”
“Give me a minute, George. We just got up here,” she retorted, turning away from him so she could focus. Closing her eyes, Lucy honed in on her Talent, Listening closely. It only took her a moment before she began to hear something—a slight hum was in the air, quiet even to her sharp ears. “There’s a… a sort of murmur, I suppose. It’s muted, so I can’t tell where it’s coming from.”
“Maybe it’ll get stronger once it gets darker. As of now, since your Talent isn’t incredibly useful…” Lucy rolled her eyes before stepping over to George to assist with the chains.
“Fine. Since apparently you aren’t incredibly useful without me,” she replied sarcastically, helping set the chains in place.
George sighed. “I laid that one out for myself, didn’t I?”
“I believe you did, yes.” They finished after a few moments, both teens stepping back once they were satisfied. “See? Easy enough-“ Lucy was cut off by a slight thump that came from behind the door, causing both their heads to turn towards the source. They sat there in hesitant silence for a moment.
“Lockwood?” George finally suggested right as Lucy headed over to the door, swinging it open to look into the hall.
Lockwood was coming out of his self-assigned room at the same time, blinking hard as he stepped into the hallway. “You alright, Lockwood?” Lucy asked, looking him over carefully. He seemed a bit disoriented.
He squinted up at her, looking like he was having a hard time finding her in the darkness of the house. “Yeah, just… Need my sunglasses. Found a death glow. Hopefully it won’t get too much brighter tonight.”
Evidently it was quite a strong death glow, based on his current state. It didn’t help that half his face was littered with bruises, either.
“That bad?”
Lockwood offered Lucy a sort of forced laugh before starting off down the steps. She wasn’t sure if it sounded more self-deprecating or self-pitying.
“Barely opened the door and it blinded me,” he said, keeping his eyes focused on the staircase as he carefully descended it.
“Where was it?” Lucy questioned, glancing into the bedroom herself to see if it was strong enough for her horrid sense of Sight could spot anything. She could just barely see some light coming from inside, but she wasn’t sure if it was just from the window or anything genuinely supernatural.
“Closet,” Lockwood called back to her from the bottom of the stairs. “I think I might’ve left it open, actually.” He disappeared into the darkness of the house, seemingly stumbling towards the kitchen in search of their bags.
The concern that had rooted itself in her chest brought her closer to the spare bedroom, and she peeked inside. Indeed, Lucy could clearly see a death glow coming from the open closet door. She crept closer, catching sight of some vague facial features on the head. Definitely a strong one, if even she could make out a nose and eyes.
Lucy let her eyes sweep the room, searching for any other signs of the Visitor. She found nothing but a perfectly normal—if not nicer than she usually saw—spare bedroom. Even her Listening came up with nothing new, just the sort of humming noise she’d heard earlier.
With a small huff, Lucy turned back towards the hall, heading back into the office. George was flipping through some of the papers on the desk as she entered, not even bothering to look up as she moved to his side.
“Lockwood alright?” he asked, eyes slowly scanning the contents of the pages. His penlight illuminated the words, revealing the papers to be nothing more than old bills and the like.
“As much as he can be. He got a bit blinded by a death glow in there.” Lucy fiddled with some pens that were scattered across the desktop, pushing one back and forth on the wood. “It’s a strong one. I could even make out some of the face.”
George just nodded, his face screwed up in concentration. He was evidently very interested in what he was reading, based on his expression. Lucy wasn’t sure why, if her quick peek at them had told her anything.
“Snooping around our client’s personal business, are we?” Lucy prompted as she leaned against the desk, looking for something to occupy her time before she felt obligated to go get the Skull. She had left it downstairs, not having had the energy to both carry the heavy ghost jar and listen to the Skull’s rants at the same time. She’d had a busy enough week already.
“Maybe,” George mumbled, glancing over at her with an unapologetic look on his face. “Seems they’re a bit backed up on mortgage payments. And strangely, Mr. Greenberg keeps buying bags of salt in bulk.” He held up a piece of paper for Lucy under his light.
“What does he need with that much salt?” Lucy asked as she took the page from him. It was indeed a bill from Satchell’s, listing Mr. Greenberg as the buyer of a ridiculous amount of salt for a non-agent.
George just shrugged, turning his attention back to the stack of papers. “Maybe he’s just paranoid, sprinkling salt across every surface to keep the ghosts in his home from attacking him.”
“If that were the case, don’t you think we would’ve seen all that salt around?”
Another shrug. “Mrs. Greenberg could’ve cleaned up for us.”
“Then why is the office still in such a state?” George gave Lucy an exasperated sigh before snatching the bill from her hand.
“Just forget about it. What the man does with his bags of salt is his own business.” He returned the paper back to the stack, making it as neat as it was before he’d messed with it.
“Says the one who was just searching through said man’s personal papers,” Lucy muttered as she watched George move on to the rest of the office.
The two of them looked around the scattered books and papers in silence for a while, occasionally honing in with their Talents to try and see if anything new was happening psychically. Lucy still hadn’t heard Lockwood come back upstairs, but she wasn’t worried—he, like George, was probably snooping around their client’s home as he waited for the interesting part of the night to begin. And Lucy doubted he was exactly rushing to head back into the room where he was likely to be blinded again.
The clock hadn’t even struck nine by the time things began to pick up. Lucy felt the temperature suddenly drop as she fiddled with the pens on the desk again. George, meanwhile, was rooting around in an overturned wardrobe, looking for anything that might activate his Touch.
“Do you feel that, George?” Lucy shivered even underneath her thick jumper that she brought for chilly nights like these.
“Temp just shot down four degrees… It’s still dropping.” George pulled his hand out from the cabinet and gestured for her to follow him into their circle. Lucy took her place beside him, pulling out her rapier in preparation for the incoming Visitor. “Here we go.”
Like they suspected, no apparition appeared, but both agents could feel a new, foreboding presence in the room. Lucy flinched as the humming noise suddenly screamed in her ears, like the ghost was trying to shout at her. She still wasn’t sure what the sound was, though—with the increased volume, it sounded almost staticky, like a television or radio.
Lucy didn’t have much time to dwell on the thought as the door to the office slammed shut behind them, sealing her and George inside the room. George yelped in surprise, obviously caught off guard by the sudden noise. She held back a smirk at his frustrated huff.
“Don’t you say a word,” he grumbled right before a book flew towards his face. He grunted as it smacked him square on the nose, making him stumble back. Lucy caught him before he left the safety of the chains. His glasses were left askew on his face. “I really hate Poltergeists.”
“Don’t we all,” Lucy said under her breath, watching as the scattered objects around the room began to lift into the air. They all abruptly shifted to face the two agents, ready to begin their assault.
“Shit.”
Thus began their desperate dodging of flying books, pens, paper weights, and most dangerous of all, letter openers. Why the Greenbergs had decided to own more than one letter opener and had stored them all in one room was a question Lucy was sure she would never get the answer to. She wasn’t sure she wanted it, anyways.
Underneath the sounds of her and George’s grunts and shouts, the pounding of miscellaneous objects smashing against the walls, and the static-like hum still roaring in her ears, Lucy heard the doorknob to the office shake, like someone was trying to open it: Lockwood. She could just barely hear his muffled voice from behind the door, likely yelling for them.
“Lockwood! He’s-“
Lucy was cut off by George’s panicked scream of “Oh shit!” as the wardrobe he’d been searching through earlier came flying towards them, thrown by the evidently very pissed off Poltergeist. With a shout of her own, Lucy tackled George to the ground, letting go of her rapier so she wouldn’t stab herself or her colleague. The wardrobe dropped just before it reached the circle, pushing apart the chains as the heavy cabinet landed atop them. The circle was broken. No more safe space in the room.
Behind them, Lucy could hear Lockwood pounding on the door, his yelling of their names mostly stifled by the thick wood. She wished she could reassure him that they were alive, they were fine, but considering how they might not be fine or alive if they didn’t find the Source soon, she didn’t bother trying.
So much for recon, it seemed. Time to get on with the job.
“George! Any idea on the Source?” Lucy shouted over the crashing sounds all around them as she scrambled to her feet.
“How would I have any idea on the Source?! I barely had time to research anything!” George shouted back, attempting to use his rapier to slash the larger objects away like a bat. The blade was much too thin to be of any use in that way, unfortunately.
Lucy almost cried out in frustration. Their circle was broken, their weapons were basically useless, and they had no clue on what the Visitor’s Source could be. They were utterly fucked. Out of desperation, she tossed a salt bomb across the room, hoping to hit something. Anything, really.
For once in her life, luck was on Lucy’s side. The flying objects dipped, some falling entirely—an indication of how she must’ve hit at least part of the ghost. Or maybe she’d just surprised it. Either way, the salt bomb had made an impact.
Seeing the reaction, George followed suit and tossed one of his own salt bombs into the air. It affected its target as well, causing more scattered office items to drop to the floor.
“We can’t hold it back forever! We only have so many salt bombs!” George shouted in frustration, gesturing to his two remaining ones.
“Well, we can’t wait around for Lockwood to save us!” Lucy yelled back, dodging a stapler from the completely pissed off Visitor.
It seemed their efforts to fight back had only angered the Poltergeist even more, as it began to rapidly throw any nearby objects their way. George was again hit by a book, this time in his shoulder. He nearly dropped his rapier at the force of it, but was luckily able to steady himself before he fell. Meanwhile, Lucy desperately searched for what could be the Source as she tried, often in vain, to avoid the flying office wares. At least the ghost hadn’t thrown any of the letter openers again, but it was only a matter of time, Lucy suspected.
George was eventually forced to use another salt bomb, but it was blown back by a gust of air—right towards the door. The wardrobe was tossed along with it, both crashing into the door hard enough for something to buckle. At first, Lucy thought it might be their shot to get out before the Visitor killed them with a thousand paper cuts and bruises from books. She soon realized how wrong she was.
The Poltergeist had stopped throwing things at her and George and had instead began to direct its efforts towards the weakened door. Why…?
It wanted the door open. She didn’t know how, but Lucy knew that’s what the ghost wanted. And for some reason, she felt things would get much worse if it got its way.
That feeling intensified when she heard a hefty thud against the wood, followed by a cracking sound from the doorway. Lockwood was coming in to try and save them.
“Lucy! George!” Lockwood yelled before Lucy heard the thudding again—likely Lockwood throwing himself against the door, from the weight of it.
Panic shot through Lucy’s veins as she cried out, “Lockwood! Wait!”
But it was too late. Before she’d even finished shouting, Lockwood had burst through the half broken door. And before she’d even gotten a full view of his face, he was blown back with enough force for him to go flying, disappearing back through the doorway.
“Lockwood!”
Lucy wasn’t sure if his name came from her own mouth or George’s, but it didn’t matter. She unthinkingly left the safety of the chains to jump over the overturned wardrobe, shoving past the swinging remains of the door, and out into the hall. She heard George shout behind her, but her mind was focused on Lockwood—Lockwood, whose limp body was lying crumpled against the guest bedroom wall all the way across the hallway. Lucy’s heart dropped at the sight of him, but she swore her heart stopped entirely as an unnatural darkness began to slowly close around him.
The second Visitor. It was a fucking Dark Specter.
“No!” Lucy lobbed one of her remaining salt bombs into the pitch black cloud surrounding Lockwood, her heart restarting as the ghost quickly retreated away from him in response.
“Lucy!” she heard George call out from behind her, but she was too busy sprinting full speed to get to Lockwood before the Visitor recovered. As she reached him, she pulled out his rapier with one hand while the other desperately pulled at one of his arms to drag him back towards the door. “Lucy, we gotta go!”
“Help me then!” Lucy thrust Lockwood’s rapier towards the Dark Specter as it tried approaching again, scaring it off for a moment. That moment was all George needed to run forwards to grab Lockwood’s other arm and haul him into the circle of chains in front of the door. He hurriedly shoved Lucy’s abandoned rapier into her belt, making sure not to hit her even with his rushed movements.
“We need to get out. Now,” he muttered, sheathing his own rapier to hook his hands underneath the still unconscious Lockwood’s arms so he could drag him along better. Lucy was probably a bit stronger than George, but he had the advantage of height when carrying the taller boy. “Opening the door somehow seemed to free the Poltergeist into the rest of the house. I’m sure its Source is still in the office, but without anything to go off of, we’re not going to find it tonight. Not without dying first.”
Lucy nodded shakily, adrenaline still coursing through her body as she fully took in her surroundings. The Dark Specter was seemingly cowering in the corner of the room, still taking the shape of a supernatural black cloud. She could see the bright death glow in the still open closet, somewhat countering the darkness of the Type Two just a few steps away from it. Outside the room, she could hear the Poltergeist wreaking havoc on the rest of the house, apparently freed from its confines in the office. And somehow she and George had to drag a helpless Lockwood back down the stairs and out the door, with only a slim chance of having the time to collect their kit bags on the way out.
“You ready?” George asked, giving Lucy only a moment to collect herself before he stepped backwards out of the chains, pulling Lockwood along with him. She held up Lockwood’s rapier to protect them from whatever she could as they moved as quickly as they could down the hall towards the stairs. Lucy couldn’t hold back a sympathetic wince as George began to drag Lockwood down the steps, his already bruised body falling harshly against each one.
They were a few steps away from the front door when a flying chair smashed against it, breaking against the strong wood. Lucy ignored it as she moved in front of the two boys to open the door, grabbing their heavy kit bags before following after George and slamming the front door closed.