It had been a while since Insym had last been on a hunt. Ever since the incident last time, he had felt hesitant to step back into the realm of ghost hunting. But he couldn’t help but feel like he was needed, that someone out there had to solve the cases that kept popping up. He had seen the flyers, facebook posts, even newspaper clippings, all of them begging for help. It had been so long… so it was time to get back into the game. It would be a rough adjustment, sure, but he knew that it would be absolutely worth it to help a family find peace in their home for the first time in too long.
His phone rang and he took a deep breath before pulling it out of his pocket and answering. “Hello?”
“Hey, welcome back. I’ve got some jobs ready for you,” the voice on the other end spoke.
“Yeah, yeah, I know.”
“It’s been a while.”
“I know.”
“Do you think you’re ready?”
“I… I think so…” He replied hesitantly.
“Well, just gimme a shout if you need me.”
“Thanks, will do,” he said, then hung up. He sighed, “what in the world have I gotten myself into…” he thought. After preparing a cup of coffee and eating a protein bar, he pulled up his regular packing list.
“May as well grab a bit of everything…” He muttered to himself as he sorted through the various items that he’d need to bring along. He tossed in some glow sticks, cameras, DOTS projectors, at least two of everything he could possibly need. He looked at the sanity pills and laughed under his breath. “Yeah… I could use some of those right now, and I’m not even there yet…” He scratched his head nervously then took another deep breath.
After finishing his list, he went to the storage room where all of the ghost hunting supplies were stored. The lock on the door was rusty, the door itself was extremely stubborn to move, and once he got inside, he noticed that every single surface was covered with layers upon layers of dust. He pulled his shirt over his nose and mouth as he began to brush off some of the boxes by-hand. ‘Maybe not the best day to wear a shirt that’s half-white,’ he thought as he saw so many specks of dust fly up just to land all over himself and darken the fabric of his clothing.
He was very thankful that everything was still just as organized as before. He knew that a few ghost-hunting friends had used some of his belongings. Which, after all, were just sitting there idly so it made sense that he had let them put them to good use. Even so, he gave a sigh of relief over how everything was still labeled and stacked properly. Sure the value-size box of 100 purple UV-reactive glow sticks was mostly gone when he opened it which wasn’t how it was left before his friends rummaged through the place; and sure some of the flashlight batteries were dead or lighters needed to be refilled, but all-in-all, it wasn’t too bad. So maybe he lowered his expectations just a bit, but he’d rather be pleasantly surprised by expecting the worst rather than being in total shock of things being worse off than imagined, so, he took the pleasant surprise in stride.
He let his shirt fall from his face and filled up his utility cart with everything that was on his list, a spare gas can, some jumper cables, and of course, the keys to the van. He felt a shiver go up and down his spine as he walked over to the van that was parked out back behind the storage area. That too had accumulated dust both inside and out. He’d need to clean up sometime, or maybe ask someone else to see if they’d be willing to do it for him. After all, he did have to deal with the inconvenience of being out of at least 60 glow sticks, a handful of broken tripods, and a spirit box that refused to turn on despite having perfectly fine batteries in it.
After loading up the van, jump-starting the battery, and getting the engine warmed up and ready to go, he looked around and began to feel nostalgic. He had missed those four large monitors, the computer with the icon that bounced around eternally, the clanking sound that his shoes made when hitting the metal floor, he missed it all. “How long has it even been?” He thought, and began counting down the months. “Wow. Seven months. It’s been seven-f*cking-months since I’ve last hunted… God, I really hope that I don’t die… That would SUCK.” He took a deep breath and shook the nerves out of his system. “You can do it, you can do it, you’ve got this, it’ll be easy, just like old times, you’re a pro, you can do it," he repeated to himself over and over again hoping that maybe after thinking it enough times that he’d actually believe it. Eventually, he started to think that maybe, just maybe this was possible. He sat in the driver’s seat, took a deep breath, and put the van into drive.
—
Insym pulled up to the house and parked outside. He took the keys out of the ignition, shoved them in his jacket pocket, then stood up and stretched. He guided himself through a few meditative breaths before finally getting the courage to grab a few things. First things first, Thee Journal. It was practically the ghost-hunting bible, providing as much information as possible to make every hunt efficient and easy. He dug it out from under the driver’s seat and swiped the dust off of it. Naturally, he accidentally inhaled some of the dust and began coughing and sneezing. “Great… Just what I need…” He grumbled to himself then began to skim over his notes.
Twenty-four possible ghost types, seven different types of evidence. Can’t be that hard… right? Hopefully. He really, really hoped so. He looked at the small notes he had written in the margins of tips and tricks that he had learned over time like: Phantoms won’t appear in photos, Jinns can’t turn off the breaker, Onis will never do the airball effect, Mares will only turn off lights, never turn them on, and the classic: Poltergeists throwing everything pretty much everywhere just for the hell of it.
He continued to flip through the pages, landing on the chapter about cursed possessions. He sighed and rubbed his temples. “Right… that too…” He searched over the titles and the small context clues such as: avoid asking for knowledge with the monkey paw, pray that you don’t end up stuck with a summoning circle or a hanged man tarot card, and ghosts are very hesitant to answering how many pickles can fit up their butt, but every now and then the not-so-shy ones will be willing to give an answer.
After scanning over a few more details and jogging up some old memories, he nodded and closed the journal. “Alright, I’ve got this,” he said to himself then tucked the journal into his back pocket and walked over to the van’s trailer door. He dropped it down and grabbed the house key, twirling it in his fingers anxiously as he looked at his vast array of equipment that was set out and ready to go. First he grabbed his flashlight, then grabbed a smudge stick and a lighter. He walked out of the van and slowly approached the house. He could feel the anxiety accumulating in his body, but he knew that it had been long enough and that he was really, truly ready to step back into this life. With a sharp inhale and a slow exhale, he pushed the key into the doorknob and turned it.
The door creaked as it opened and the floor creaked under him as he stepped inside. He had seen the map layout in the van, but figured that it would be best to take a quick walk around to get acquainted and to track down any potential hiding spots. He didn’t want to take any more risks. Sure back in the day it was fun to take risks, especially with having friends around to wreak havoc with you, but times had changed. So many circ*mstances had shifted over the past year and it just… didn’t seem like a good idea to try anything even the slightest bit unsafe. After all, that’s why he took the easiest-looking job that was advertised.
After walking into every single room, nothing seemed very out of the ordinary, at least not from what he could remember. No instant aggression, no antics of throwing anything around, just silence and stillness. He couldn’t necessarily complain about that, but he also knew that he had a job to do and wanted to do it as quickly as possible so he could go home and sit in the safety of his own living room.
Figuring that the environment seemed safe enough, he tossed the smudge stick and lighter onto the counter then made his way back out to the van. He propped his flashlight up onto his shoulder then pondered which items to bring in first. “Maybe I’ll go the technical route,” he thought as he reached for a DOTS projector, EMF meter, and a spirit box. He took the items and hustled back into the house. He tried to figure out where to set up his things, but nothing seemed to stand out. “f*ck it,” he thought as he tossed those items onto the kitchen counter then hustled back out to the van.
“Gotta get everything. Can’t forget anything.” He muttered as he walked back out of the house and into the van. He looked over more of his evidence options then grabbed two writing books and a video camera. He shuffled back inside, tossed everything onto the kitchen counter, then came back out and grabbed a thermometer, crucifix, and glow stick. Once he got all of that placed together, he ran back out one more time to grab two candles and an additional smudge stick. Now with all of his immediate needs met and items ready to go, he re-entered the house.
He kept the lighter and smudge stick shoved into his back pocket for emergency use, then grabbed the EMF reader and thermometer. He checked the kitchen for any temperature changes, but it didn’t seem to be that way. He walked into the utility room, still about average. Same for the garage. He sighed and walked back out into the hallway, checking the living room which was still pretty normal. “Okay, we’re running out of room options here…” He muttered as he made his way to the foyer. After trying the kid’s room, the primary bathroom, and the nursery all with a whopping failure to get a change in results, he entered the master bedroom and immediately felt the temperature drop. He gave a sigh of relief then walked around slowly, keeping his eye on the thermometer. It was getting pretty cold pretty fast, but nothing quite yet. He tossed it onto the ground then took out the EMF reader and switched it on. It began to warble immediately, and he walked around the room very slowly, trying to see if it would spike in a particular area. With no luck, he tossed it on the ground but left it on in hopes that maybe it’ll make a noise. As he entered the hallway again and made his way towards the kitchen, the reader erupted in an abrupt and very loud noise. He quickly turned around and sprinted back, hardly catching it in time as all five lights shone brightly while the mechanism continued to blare. “Nice, EMF level 5.”
He then made his way back to the kitchen to access what items he’d need next. “Hmm… visuals maybe?” He picked up the DOTS machine and the video camera and walked back into the master bedroom. He fixed the DOTS to the wall right next to the window, and kept the camera in-hand as he walked around. No orbs seem to appear, but it was too early to rule that out. He continued to watch for any DOTS and orbs activity, but it seemed like a bust, so he left the room. “Hmm, maybe I should grab a tripod, just in case,” he thought, then ran out to the van and grabbed one. He then shuffled back into the house, set the tripod in the corner of the bedroom and set up the video camera on it.
Once that was ready to go, he walked back into the kitchen. Nothing seemed to be happening yet, and he couldn’t quite tell if that was a good thing or a bad thing. On the bright side, he wasn’t being hunted down and injured or killed, but he wasn’t able to gather much active evidence either. He sighed then picked up the spirit box and his two writing books. He walked back into the master bedroom and set the books down, one in the bathroom and the other on the bed and waited to see if something would happen. Yet again, no activity. “Okay so maybe you’re not the artsy type,” he mumbled as he turned on the spirit box.
“Hello? Are you here?” He shouted, and got no response. “Are you close?” Again, no response. “Are you friendly?” With yet another annoying moment of silence, he sighed. “Are you French? Are you pizza? Where are you?” Still nothing. He groaned and cursed under his breath. “Of course.” He tossed the spirit box on the bed and left the room.
He was frustrated and couldn’t quite figure out what to do next since most of the evidence items weren’t yielding results. He decided to go back to the van and reassess the situation. As he entered the van, he saw the indication on the lower left monitor stating that he was at 69% sanity. “Nice,” he chuckled before digging out the journal. “Okay, let’s see here…” He clicked the pen on then held it between his lips as he flipped through the pages.
He flipped between ghost reference pages then back to his case file paper. “EMF five so that leaves me with…” He scratched off the following types: Phantom, Poltergeist, Banshee, Mare, Demon, Yurei, Yokai, Onryo, and put a question mark next to The Mimic. “Cool, down to nine, maybe ten.” He flipped back through his notes to the remaining types, and read his annotation about wraiths. “Right! Salt!” He hastily grabbed two bottles of black salt then stopped before turning around and looking at his computer monitor. There were only two cameras set up and the one for the main door was mostly useless, but at least the tripod gave him a glimmer of hope. He looked and looked but again, nothing. He sighed and then walked inside with his salt.
He sprinted into the master bedroom and before setting up his salt placements, he saw that the mercury was extremely low on the thermometer. He picked it up and saw that it was just barely freezing temperatures, slowly rising but it was freezing when he caught it nonetheless. He set the thermometer back down then looked at the salt bottles still in his hands. “Eh, I’ll toss it down anyways,” he thought, then shook two placements at the door for the main bedroom, one shake right before the master bathroom, two shakes for the foyer area, and one more for the boy’s bedroom just for good measure. He figured that he probably wouldn’t need it, but he knew that there was a hiding spot in the closet there so it was worth a shot to have it as a fall-back plan just in case.
He walked back into the master bedroom and picked up the spirit box again. “Where are you? Are you here?” Silence. “Are you close? Are you friendly?” More silence. “Are you French? Are you grandma?” Again with the silence. “Where are you?!” He shouted then angrily tossed the spirit box back onto the bed. “I’ll take that as a no…” he muttered under his breath then decided to revisit the van.
He pulled out his journal as he walked back into the van. “EMF five, freezing temps… Hmm…” He flipped between pages and scribbled out more options. By the time he was done, he had only Jinn, Shade, and Oni remaining on his list. He smiled then shoved the journal back into his pocket. He looked at the sanity monitor and saw that it had dropped to 57%. “Good, it should start hunting soon.”
He walked back into the house and looked around. Still nothing too crazy, but at least he knew that he had a one-in-three chance of figuring it out. Maybe it was worth digging out the cursed possession to try to spice things up a bit. He looked in the hallway and the nursery, but neither the mirror nor music box were there. He began walking to the garage when out of the corner of his eye he saw the tarot cards resting on the table next to the couch.
He ran over to the stack of cards and grabbed it. “Please gimme something good,” he begged as he pulled the first card. The Devil. The card then evaporated into pink smoke, and he quickly checked his surroundings. The ghost stood in front of the utility room door and stared at him before walking towards him. Once it got close, it disappeared followed by a sharp sound. “Alright… nothing new…” He murmured.
He picked up another card and read it. Death. Wait, no, The Fool. It evaporated into light purple smoke and he gave a sigh of relief. Maybe, just maybe, he’d get off easy. He picked up yet another card. The Wheel of Fortune. The card then evaporated into red smoke, and he felt his heart uncomfortably skip a bit. He took a deep breath and then checked his surroundings again. There still didn’t seem to be much activity, so he walked over to the kitchen to grab a candle and a crucifix.
While he was picking up these items, the flashlight on his shoulder began to flash intermittently. “sh*t…” He mumbled then ran to the opposite side of the kitchen island. He watched as a figure approached him, blinking on and off at a seemingly typical pace. “Okay okay, keep cool…” He whispered to himself then began walking to the left as the ghost began walking towards the right side of the counter. He crouched down low and continued to walk, hoping that maybe the ghost wouldn’t catch on. As soon as the ghost seemed to be far enough away, he sprinted off to the boy’s bedroom. He rushed in, whipped open the closet door, hurried inside, and closed the slatted door behind him. He took several deep breaths and was careful to not do anything until things seemed to subside. Once the coast was clear, he left the closet and walked back out into the foyer.
There weren’t many options left, so now very frustrated, he walked back out to the van. His sanity was at 20%, ugh. Sure it wouldn’t take too long to start hunting again, but he still didn’t want to take any risks. He turned around and took two sanity pills. Hopefully that would make his life a little bit easier. He decided it was time to make his way back into the house.
He re-entered the foyer and looked around. Again, nothing. He figured that maybe it would be worth a shot seeing if he could get an event to happen in the ghost room, so he made his way into the master bedroom. As he was about to walk in, he heard a smack sound against the floor. He ran over and saw as one of the writing books hit the ground, now filled with scribbles and strange drawings. “Ghost writing! Hell yeah!” Finally, he got the third form of evidence and now it was time to get the hell out of there. He hastily made his way to the door, ignoring anything that was left behind on the floor. None of that mattered anymore because he had his answer.
He walked, practically skipped, into the van with pride for solving the case. He took out his journal again and scratched out Jinn and Oni. He quickly glanced back at the camera that was in the bedroom, but there were still no orbs. Content with his conclusion, he scratched out The Mimic and drew a giant circle around Shade.
“No wonder it took forever to do anything, and it wouldn’t do sh*t when I was nearby. Well, at least that was an easy re-introduction.” He set his journal on the table, closed up the van, and then sat in the driver’s seat.
—
When Insym got back to the safehouse, he still couldn’t wipe the smile off of his face. Maybe it wasn’t so bad after all, or maybe he just got lucky by getting one of the most gentle ghosts for his first job back. Either way, he felt very proud of himself. Right on cue as expected, his phone rang and he quickly picked it up.
“Hey, you made it back in one piece. Nice work,” the voice on the other end of the line said.
“Thanks, I’m glad I made it work. Plus my guess was right, so, I’m pretty content with myself I think.”
“That’s great! I’m glad you are, you deserve to be!”
“Thanks.”
“So…” the other person spoke slowly.
“So?”
“Are you getting back in the game?”
“I don’t know yet…” Insym replied hesitantly. “I’m just not sure if I’m ready yet…”
“Come on kid, that was a walk in the park for you! You’ll be back to your old self in no-time!”
“Easy for you to say…”
“Yeah, it is. Cause I know you. You’re one hell of a kid, smart as can be, and you’re one of the best ghost hunters out there. The world is safer with you being a ghost hunter in it and I know you know that.”
He sighed. He couldn’t think of any words to say, but knew that he should say something. “I–”
“I know, I know, you’re hesitant and I don’t blame ya. Just… keep it in mind, alright? We’re always here to welcome you with open arms, promise.”
“Thanks…”
“Don’t mention it. But , you should mention if you end up wanting to take another case. I’ve got tons more where that came from.”
He chuckled. “Thanks, I appreciate that.”
“I look forward to hearing from ya, kid.”
“I’ll let you know,” Insym responded then hung up the phone. He took a deep breath and looked up at the board. A success. It was a success. No problems, no faults, no issues, nothing. It was easy, almost too easy, and it was refreshing. He felt a bit of inspiration inside of his chest, that maybe, just maybe , he’d be willing to do more ghost hunting. After all, Coach was honestly right. The world became a better and safer place when he was hunting frequently, and the world needed him. He made a difference, an impact, and if overcoming his past meant a gigantic, positive change for the future, then it was worth it.
He looked down at the van key still in his hand and the storage room key laying on the desk. He smiled softly and nodded. “Alright, time to get your asses kicked you stinky ghosts,” he laughed and then picked up the storage room key and hastily made his way over to that room, swinging the door open with a smile as his face became bombarded with a gigantic cloud of dust.
