Chapter Text
Y’know, in working as a paranormal investigator, there was a certain pattern that Lup expected her workday to follow. Usually, it was a pretty consistent schedule of loading and unloading the van as needed and getting pranked by teenagers who had nothing else to do on a Saturday night. The glamour of it all had pretty much died down after her first month. In this day and age, the job of a paranormal investigator wasn’t really appreciated like it used to be.
That being said, you could never really predict when a building would actually be haunted. So when their equipment started going haywire and she couldn’t hear teenagers laughing in the distance, she bunkered down for a long night.
Lup clicked the communicator on.
“If anyone’s there,” she started, very gently, “can you give me a sign? Say your name?”
There was a very faint buzzing from the communicator. Lup flicked on her tablet and reviewed what she had to work with. The house wasn’t that old, having been built in the sixties. Supposedly, the ghost was a guy named “Barry Hallwinter” who had been tormenting this site since he died in 1969- a very good year to die in, if you asked Lup. The cause of death was listed as “unknown”, but had heavy detailing on Hallwinter’s allergy to cashews, so it wasn’t really that much of a guessing game.
Lup shuffled towards the kitchen, where Hallwinter had been found dead. Once inside, she set the communicator down on the counter.
“Nice place ya got here, Barry,” Lup said, patting the counter. “Real, uh, real stylish.”
(The walls of the kitchen were a very repugnant shade of blue, but it wasn’t Lup’s place to judge.)
The communicator crackled a bit more and the hairs on the back of Lup’s neck stood up. She kept very still, her hand against the counter. The communicator crackled in a deeper tone and a voice answered that said,
“Thanks, I think?”
Lup exhaled.
“You’re Barry, right?” she asked. “Barry Hallwinter?”
“Your the first one to call me Hallwinter in about a decade, but yeah,” Barry’s voice answered. Something beyond the kitchen door creaked. Lup turned her body towards the door.
“Are you in the kitchen, or?”
“You’re gonna make fun of me if I go in there, so uh, no, I’m good,” Barry said.
“Why would I make fun of you?” Lup asked. She flicked on her tablet again, scrolling through the information. “I mean, you seem like you were pretty well off before, y’know, dying and shit. If you’re embarrassed because of the cashews, I won’t judge, man. I gotta keep my brother from killing himself with peanuts, so I get it, at least.”
“It’s- it’s not the cashews,” Barry said, voice much closer to the kitchen door now. “I mean, that was pretty embarrassing but I’m over it. It’s just that, uh, well.” There was a pause. The kitchen door creaked open just a tiny bit. “How much do you know about ghosts?”
“I’m a paranormal investigator,” Lup began and Barry snorted. “What? You can’t make fun of me when you’re embarrassed about dying.”
“I’m not embarrassed about dying,” Barry said, a little defensively. “I’ve met like, ten other paranormal investigators and, uhm, not to insult you, but they’re kinda crap at their job. And also, they’ve been very mean. I just wanna make sure you’re not mean because I might die again if that happens.”
“I know my fair share about ghosts,” Lup said. “Just hit me with it, Barry, I can take it.”
“Well, uh, ghosts are like- we’re like spirits, but spirits can exist without possession, right? They’re just floatin’ around and not doing any damage to anyone. But ghosts kinda have to possess something to take form.”
The kitchen door squeaked open the rest of the way. Lup looked down.
A pair of crisp, blue jeans stood in front of her.
There was a very long silence.
“Okay, uhm,” Lup said finally. The blue jeans had moved like someone was leaning up against the kitchen door for support. “Yeah, sure, fuck it, I can work with this.”