Chapter Text
“—can shorten it to SCARA! For promotional purposes.”
“SCARA. Huh.” Cub’s tone is impassive. His expression reads neutral to amiable, but he’s not quite there yet with the unbridled enthusiasm. He needs to be convinced.
“Yeah! Pretty clever, right?” Scar grins at him. “We could make a logo with a scary monster eating the ghosts.”
“I see your name is in there,” Cub says, “while mine is not.”
“It’s in there! You’re the C, Cub! It’s only a coincidence that it spells out my name.” Scar stretches his arms. The chair creaks. “A happy accident, though—a lucky one, even, some would say, since I will be the face—er—the head of the operation!”
“I see.” Cub lets the bottle swing gently back and forth, the neck secure between his two fingers. Then he takes a sip. He doesn’t particularly like beer, but it’s a rare occasion Scar buys him a drink—even if it’s at the shabbiest bar of the block—so he does his best to enjoy it. “Mmh. And what did you say my role in all of this was going to be?”
“Now, I’m glad you asked, Cub! I’m so very glad you asked me that question.” Scar is drinking water. He’s broke again. “I thought up this plan, and then I immediately thought of you! And do you know why, Cubby? Let me explain what we’re going to do, but first, you need to cast your mind back, all the way back to—ooh—high school. Do you remember that night we played with the ouija board in the cellar?”
Cub considers. “I think I do.” He takes another, deeper sip. “Yeah, I remember.”
Somebody stumbles past their table, leans briefly on the back of Cub’s chair for balance. The place is filling up. The cover of chatter and loud music gives them some privacy, but Scar edges closer nonetheless. “You had me with that,” he whispers, theatrical, holding up a finger. “You had me for years. No, don’t give me that look, it was a good performance, Cub! A great performance, a powerful performance—I never knew you could act like that. I thought—I really thought you were possessed by the Janitor Jack. The thing you did with your eyes, that was creepy, and then you changed your voice and made the—I still have nightmares about the growl. I have nightmares, Cub! Just thinking about it now gives me the heebie-jeebies.” He laughs. “It really was something.”
“Yeah.” Cub’s expression doesn’t change at all, but he squeezes the bottle with both hands. “It was something.”
“So here’s what I thought: I’ll get the clients. You wouldn’t believe how many people have ghost problems, Cub, it’s going to be a walk in the park. I’ll speak to them, persuade them, offer them a last chance to get a message to a loved one, every nice thing under the sun. We go to where they say the ghost is, and you get possessed by it. Just like you were possessed by Janitor Jack!” Scar’s grin widens. “And then we just figure out what we want the ghost to say. I can—I can film it, if the client is not with us, and—look here, Cub. Look what I’ve got!”
Scar lifts up the tattered gym bag he’s been dragging along. He opens the zipper and presents the items to Cub one after another: A couple of white candles, a box of chalk, a crucifix (“This one cost me nothing, got it from the lady across the street!” he says, beaming. “She likes me!”) and even a pack of salt with a discount sticker slapped on the top. He has also bought a new flashlight that against the odds looks relatively sturdy. He asks if Cub can lend him batteries.
“Correct me if I’m mistaken,” Cub says, “but these do look like the tools for the world’s phoniest and the most low effort exorcism. Think you have what it takes to kick out a ghost, Scar?”
“Of course! How hard could it be?” Scar makes a mock-ghostly sound and waves the crucifix in front of Cub’s face. “Begone, evil spirit! So—what do you say? Is app—apparel—ap-a-ah— help me out here, Cub!”
“Apparition.”
“Thank you! Is Apparition Removal Agency a go? Will you be my partner?” He drops the cross on the table and holds out a hand.
Cub thinks about it.
Him and Scar are old friends. Cub has been here before—being asked to take part in a questionable enterprise—and it has happened enough times that he can say with confidence: A good nine out of ten of Scar’s schemes are bound to fail.
Nine out of ten on a good day. And as far as business ideas go, even by Scar standards, this one is ridiculous. Potentially dangerous too.
And it doesn’t matter. The grand success may ever be just around the next -next corner, but nothing Scar has pulled him into has he ever regretted, because the failures, as trivial or tragic as they may be, never fail to entertain.
It would be amusing; and that’s all he needs to be convinced.
“Sure thing,” he says. He shakes Scar’s hand. “You can count me in.”
—
The room has a musty smell. Time has given the once-white crocheted bedspread a dirty yellow tint. The curtains are drawn but thin enough to let through light. There’s still a glass on the nightstand, and a picture of some pretty young people, likely relatives, maybe children. The atmosphere in the place is, granted, a little gloomy, considering somebody died here a few days prior, but all in all there’s nothing making the room seem particularly haunted.
Surely ghost hunters would be able to sense if there is a phantasmal presence nearby, even if it’s their first job.
Even if the pay is barely enough to cover their lunches and the gas for Cub’s car. They’ll get experience! And exposure! The word of the mouth will have the more lucrative work rolling in in no time!
“Let’s sit on the bed for this!” Scar is balancing his phone on the corner of the table, to capture the encounter with the ghost. “We will call for her, like, ‘Mary, Mary! Show yourself, Mary! Tell us what keeps you on this earthly plane!’ We’ll light the candles, and then—”
He turns around and cuts his sentence short. Cub has slumped on the bed, and his head hangs down. Dark hair over his eyes and he’s making a low, breathy noise—a snore?
“Cub!” Scar is at once amused and affronted. “You can’t sleep on a mission!”
Cub’s shoulders jerk. Slowly, he raises his head.
His mouth hangs slack. His eyes are hazy, cloudy, white.
Scar draws in a sharp breath. “Wh—Cub! I didn’t know you already started—I mean, is this—is this Mary? Is Mary here?”
Cub’s voice is a mumble. He sways from side to side. “Who are you?”
Okay. Okay! Cub is veering from the script, but that’s alright! Scar is a quick thinker. Good at improvisation. “We are from SCARA,” he says. Cub’s demeanor is unsettling, but Scar can’t get distracted by his acting chops. He sits down on the side of the bed. “We’re friends! I’m Scar, and we’re here to help you pass on, Mary. Just—talk to us. Tell us everything.”
“Everything?” Cub wheezes. His eyes search for Scar’s face, but don’t fully focus. “What is happening? Why am I so cold?”
“Oh, Mary,” Scar says, “do I have news for you.”
It goes pretty much like they rehearsed from there. The ghost doesn’t know she’s dead. She takes it relatively well. She wants little things—she asks if she won the lottery (the ticket is in the drawer. Cub must have checked it while Scar wasn’t looking). She didn’t. She wants to send a letter to her granddaughter, and Scar writes down what Cub tells him to. It’s very sweet, some life advice, some family secrets.
Then, as Scar puts the paper down, he sees there’s blood trickling down from Cub’s nose.
“Cub—Mary,” he says, pointing. “You’ve got a nosebleed.”
The ghost does not react.
“Right there!” He leans closer. “There. Can you—right under your nose.”
Cub’s mouth is hanging open again. Blood drips down his lips, his chin. His throat moves, his head jerks—and Scar yelps, startling back.
His poor heart! Scar clutches his chest, but nothing more sinister is happening than just Cub tossing his head in jerky motions from one side to the other. It looks bad but it’s just an act! Cub is trying to freak him out, but he’s not falling for it. The air in the room is thick and the weather must have changed outside, because it’s getting darker.
“Okay, I think we’re done here!” He declares, voice only slightly high pitched. He takes out the crucifix and holds it directly in front of Cub’s restless head. “You got what you wanted, Mary! You can let go now. Go—begone! You’re dead and you should move on, so let go of Cub, and—”
Cub slumps again. He topples a bit to the side—and falls to the floor.
A thud, and then everything is quiet for a long moment. And then Cub sits up, rubbing his head, and his eyes are normal, and he says, pointedly, “Ouch.”
Scar dares breathe again. He’s still gripping the crucifix ever so tightly. “What in the world, Cub? You didn’t have to go that hard! You’ll end up getting a tension neck and that’s not a fun time, I can tell you that right now. I’m—wait, I’ll cut the recording off—oh. Oh no, Cub, no, this is not good, I was sitting in the wrong spot! It’s just—oh no. You can see nothing but my back most of the time, look at this!”
He shoves the phone to Cub, who—still on the floor—scrubs quickly through the video. He shakes his head. “Can’t believe this, man.” His tone is appropriately emphatic, near wounded. “Can’t believe this. It really is just your back. Geeze.” Pause. “I must have knocked myself out, did you encounter the ghost all by yourself, Scar? What happened?”
He passes the phone back to Scar, touches his own lips and then looks at the blood on his fingertip, quizzical.
Scar is not quite sure how to answer that. He had been about to suggest that they do the bit again, because the recording really is that terrible and all Cub’s effort wasted, but— “You know,” he says, “I’m not sure. Did you get possessed for real?”
Cub turns to look at him. He’s paler than usual. After a short pause he says, “Nah, man. That sounds unlikely.”
“So you were acting?”
Cub shrugs. "I've never acted in my life, Scar." He finally takes a tissue from his pocket and wipes his face. "Never acted. But I doubt it was possession. I repel ghosts. Fun fact, ghosts don't attack people with glasses. They get spooked by their own reflection."
Scar cocks his head. "I've never heard that."
"It’s facts. Look it up." Cub stands up. “What’s this?”
“Why, it’s the letter that the ghost wanted me to write! Pack it up, Cub, pack it up! We can give it to the family as proof. I’ll tell them how we banished the ghost and they’ll have to pay us.”
"Oh baby. Easy money."
“Yeah.” Scar gives one more long, thoughtful look to Cub, but he seems to be pretty much his normal self so everything is probably fine. “Yeah! For a first gig, this went great.” He pockets the phone, picks up the bag and his crutches. “Not perfect, I’m not saying we did perfect, but we learned a lot! And the next time—”
They exit the room. The curtains move, like a hand was pushing them to the side. It has to be the draft.
“—next time, you won’t be able to scare me, mister. I’m wise to your tricks now! But we did good. And! I already have the next customer lined up. I told you, Cub, we’ll make profit. I’ve got a feeling. This is going to go so well.”