Chapter Text
“Are you sure this is the place?” Edgar asked, doubt staining his voice. “Not, like, your off-brand Map App trying to get us killed?” He had been increasingly unhappy since they had left the main road that snaked through tiny Middle-California town of Luna Bay and entered the even tinier sister city of Santa Vasquez. The neighborhood was not inviting; what few houses were occupied were unkempt, with paint peeling in large flakes from the walls, wooden garage doors that looked like they were one strong kick from becoming toothpicks and lawns that were... best left unmentioned. A pack of what was either tiny dogs or average New York rats scurried in packs away from the van’s headlights as they pulled up to a shack that was inarguably the worst on the street.
“Is that even a house?” Tenna asked, peering over Jimmy’s shoulder from the third row seats at what looked more like a standing garage than any kind of domicile.
Jimmy shuffled through his data pad, looking up at the shack and back at the device several times with jerky motions. “This is definitely the place,” he confirmed, bouncing slightly in his seat.
“Ew, yeah, it is,” Tenna confirmed, chin tucked into Jimmy’s shoulder. He hastily hid the screen of the data pad with a defensive look.
Devi yanked open the sliding door of the ancient van and hopped out, immediately shaking gutter water off her leather boot with a disgusted look. “No wonder nobody bought this place. It’s like meth central out here.” She looked at Johnny as they passed and the two shared a grimace before opening the trunk and beginning to haul out equipment.
“The Midnight Stalker has seventeen confirmed homicides to his record, but is rumored to be responsible for over three hundred ,” Jimmy read out loud, lips worshipping the words as he hopped out of the van on the street side. “He used a variety of tools and techniques, never killing anyone the same way twice, but the most interesting thing is that he was never caught. The police found his shack-”
“-Empty of all human life, but full of bloody tools and human remains.” Edgar quoted, voice twinning with Jimmy but with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm, closing the driver’s side door for emphasis. “Congratulations, Jimmy. Your enthusiasm has evolved from merely creepy into outright disturbing. Remind me why we keep you along again?”
“Because I found us three successful haunted houses and made us YouTube famous,” Jimmy retorted, then gave Edgar a quick up and down with his eyes. “But if you give me a chance I can think of a few other ways to convince you to keep me around.”
“GroooooOOOOOOOSSSSSSSSSSSS,” Tenna wailed and shoved Jimmy until he stopped leering. “Can you like TRY to keep it in your pants tonight? For me?”
“Eh, no promises.” Jimmy wrapped a lanky arm around Tenna and walked with her to the sidewalk. Johnny gave him a dead eyed look and laid a hand on the more obvious pocket knife tucked in their belt. It was far from the only one they carried, but Jimmy had learned over several incidences that if Johnny actually bared a blade, someone was going to fucking bleed, and that someone was usually him. “On second thought, tonight is serious business and there is NO time for flirting. None.”
Tenna snorted. “Smooth.”
“Like Ex-lax,” Jimmy grinned back, earning himself another shove.
“Carry this,” Devi ordered as she shoved a boom into Tenna’s arms. Edgar was opening the case his camera went in, checking everything. Jimmy watched his hands work, losing himself for a moment in the narrow fingers and the glow of his skin under the light of the setting sun. Edgar, awkward and snarky around people, loved his fucking camera more than he loved anyone and it showed in the deftness and speed he had when inspecting his baby.
“Earth to Jimmy,” Devi called out. “You got the cues?” Jimmy looked up at her- beautiful, terrible Devi, who kept their crew running and looked damn good on camera while doing it.
“Sure thing, toots,” Jimmy grinned, ready to duck and run in case she came at him. He got lucky with only a murderous glare (which was still enough to make his balls shrivel a little bit) and pulled out his data pad to pull up the cues they had agreed on for this filming.
The gang were investigating their seventh haunted house, and they had traveled up from San Diego to do it. The trip wasn’t as bad as some, they told him, but this was only Jimmy’s fourth house with them and the furthest he’d ever gotten from home was the last house they had investigated. Truckee, CA was a forested wilderness up by Reno and the haunted house had literally been a cabin in the woods. The whole investigation had a very “we are going to die one by one and get our faces eaten by cannibals” vibe and Jimmy hadn’t liked it one bit. He’d reamed out his source for that tip, but fucking Dib had just shrugged it off, claiming he only provided the info, he didn’t guarantee a safe ghost hunt. Jimmy had been born and raised in a concrete jungle; he was happy to never see another tree again.
Jimmy’s job in all this was general information gathering, repairing broken equipment, and making sure the filming looked ok as well as cueing Devi about things to say on camera. Tenna, Devi’s childhood friend, was studying stagecraft in college and was a damn handy sound technician. She’d brought Edgar aboard two houses before Jimmy had met them; before that, it was just Devi and Johnny, who had been trespassing haunted areas with cell phone cameras. They hadn’t exactly been famous at first, but their fan base had built up enough since then that they made an alright income from ads and donations. There was even a potential market for merch that Devi had been looking into, though Johnny and Jimmy, in rare agreement, thought was too much like selling out.
(The world had not come to an end when they agreed, which Jimmy found promising and Johnny found disappointing.)
“You ready?” Edgar asked as Tenna helped clip her headset into place under her hair. She turned her back to the house and faced Edgar like a reporter, turning on her serious face and backing up slowly towards the house as she waited for the all-clear.
“Hang on,” Edgar tilted his head and watched with a slight frown as Johnny stalked towards the house. “Johnny, what the fuck are you doing?”
“Checking for boobie traps?” Jimmy edged closed to Edgar to see around him.
“Johnny’s never gone looking for boobies in h- their life,” Tenna giggled.
“Focus,” Devi snapped. She looked as if she wanted to say more, but Tenna’s smile muted into something more respectful, so after a tense moment no more was said.
Edgar fussed more with his camera until Johnny sulked back out. Jimmy backpedaled a few steps behind Edgar, standard position to hold up Devi’s cues, totally not because Johnny was aiming for the spot next to edgar Jimmy had been standing in. That might insinuate Jimmy was afraid of Johnny, and that just wouldn’t do. He just had a healthy respect, that’s all.
Edgar gave Devi the all-clear, and the cameras began to roll.
~
The room was dim under the heavy dust that coated the windows. Devi, porch introduction finished, paused once she was inside to let her eyes adjust.
“Damn, this place is a deathtrap, and not for the reasons we’re here. Edgar, are you gonna be able to pick up anything in here? I don’t want to go to night vision until we have to.”
Edgar followed her, casting a critical eye around the place. “I’m not sure. The windows are pretty low. If we clean them, it will be really obvious and we might not get enough light from that anyway. Maybe we can use the lantern.”
Devi sucked her teeth and stepped further into the shack, gazing up at the cobwebbed ceiling. “Yeah, maybe. Where the fuck is Johnny?”
Edgar shook his head and leaned against a far wall, opening a handheld camcorder. “Not on the ceiling,” He muttered under his breath. Devi did not dignify his snark with a reply but instead headed to another room, separated by a cased doorframe missing its door and filled with even deeper shadows.
“Johnny, what the fuck.” Her skinny friend was soviet crouching and holding what appeared to be a doll arm some demented, talentless child had taken a marker to.
“They were Pillsbury doughboys,” Johnny said without inflection. It was their “psychic” voice; the kind used by a person who was still mostly asleep, barely able to vocalize whatever their inward-turned brain decided to spit out. They moved slowly, lifting up the doll- the styrofoam figure?- the arm had once been attached to. She saw, all at once, the logic of the decorations: the arrows over the eyes, the wicked smile. It was exactly the kind of thing Johnny would have up in their own room. Hell, that was the kind of thing she’d first begun to like about them, when they were kids with a shared love of all things gothic horror.
“Christ, don’t tell me you’re keeping it.” Her initial smirk faded as Johnny just kept staring at it, a crease forming between their eyebrows. Abruptly they stood up and dashed the already fragile and crumbling thing into the wall, slamming it over and over as bits of dry foam flew around him. His fist was quickly the only thing hitting the wall, blood welling around his knuckled. She grabbed his arm and hauled him back, both of them flying back to the ground from the disparity in strength between her arms and Johnny’s noodly body.
Edgar and Tenna crowded in, pausing in the doorway to take in the room: Devi and Johnny on the floor with Johnny clutching their knuckles to their chest, a pile of smashed and discolored styrofoam in the corner, blood smeared on a dent in the wall. Tenna, chalking it up to another average Tuesday, stepped in the investigate the parts of the room that hadn’t been assaulted. Edgar walked over to help Johnny up and let them cling to his chest.
“This place seems…. A lot bigger than it looked,” Tenna said loudly. “I didn’t even think it had two rooms. I mean, it literally looks like my parent’s shed.”
“Your parents,” Edgar said mildly, “are wealthier than the rest of our parents put together.” Devi snorted, shaking her head as if to clear herself from a daze and standing.
“Come on. There’s nothing worth getting on camera anymore,” she muttered, glaring at the ruined foam doll. “And the light in here is even shittier than the front room. I say we leave it.”
After a few halfhearted protestations, Tenna was convinced to leave, following Edgar who was still letting Johnny use him as an anchor. Devi remained behind to glare again at the remains of the shattered foam thing.
“...help…”
Devi blinked and looked around. “Tenna?”
“Sup, bitch?” Tenna called back from the other room. “You changed your mind already?”
Devi blinked slowly and walked across the tiny room, looking at the blank wall as if she might see something new. She’d definitely heard a voice, cracked and desperate but faint as if heard through a few walls.
“Devi?” Tenna poked her head in. “Earth to Devi. You aight?”
“...Yeah,” Devi answered, reluctantly turning to her friend.
“Cool,” Tenna gave her two thumbs up and a big grin. “Because you’ll never fucking believe what Jimmy just found.”