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“Okay okay fine Impulse, I promise I’ll be careful,” Grian held his phone to his ear with his shoulder as he stapled the last Ghost Hunters Club poster to the wall, “yes I know I can’t let them die, did you think I was planning on it??” A pause, muffled voice through the phone. Grian sighed and shook his head, forgetting he wasn’t holding onto it.
He winced as it clattered to the floor and gingerly picked it up, inspecting it for any damages, thankfully it seemed fine; Impulse’s ears on the other end of the line, however, were not.
“GRIAN!” Impulse screeched through the screen, a laugh in his voice to match Grian’s as he held it back to his ear,
“Did you drop your phone out a damn window or something??” He snorted with laughter and strolled down the corridor, headed towards his next lecture,
“Noooo, just on the floor, but I am incredibly tall so I can see why you’d mistake the distance,” he joked, Impulse’s quiet amusement so strong that he could practically see him looking down at him.
“Uh huh, just remember what I said, Skizz and I checked out the locations ahead of time so if it gets that far you’ll have a monkey paw or some tarot cards to bring ‘em back-“
“-Can’t you just tell me what the ghosts are ahead of time,” Grian whined, interrupting, “so I can look super cool in front of whoever turns up by knowing it as soon as we go in,”
Impulse laughed, but then Skizz spoke “come on G, you’re the one who wanted to practice this stuff on your own to impress us!”
Grian felt his ears flush red with embarrassment, “Skizz shut upppp, I’m doing this so you two don’t keep failing and guessing the wrong ghost! Definitely not to impress you guys-“
“Hmmm, I dunno Skizz, I think he’s doing this so we’re proud of him, like how he read all those musty old books and accidentally got himself cursed,”
“Yeah! He’s just tryin to make himself cooler because we’re so cool, ay Dipple Dot?”
“Stopppppp,” he groaned, rolling his eyes with a huge grin on his face as the pair kept teasing him,
“I’m at my lecture now gotta go bye!” He laughed, hanging up and shoving his phone in his pocket as he went into the lecture hall and took his seat, letting out a good natured sigh as Scar sat down beside him and immediately began rambling about his latest essay plans—though they both knew he’d leave it to the last week before actually writing anything.
Grian threw open the door to the lecture hall he’d procured for the club meeting, his bag feeling considerably heavier despite him not having added anything to it after the long day of lectures, but he was excited to see the people who wanted to be part of his club all… three of them.
“Grian! Joel’s bullying me!” An annoyingly familiar voice called down from the back of the room, followed by a laugh and a thud as someone was punched,
“Snitch, it was funny!”
Grian laughed, “come on Tim, if Joel’s scaring you then you’re definitely not in the right place, we are hunting g-g-ghosts after all!”
Jimmy looked outraged at this, which made Joel and Grian wheeze with laughter,
“F-first off! I never said Joel scared me! And secondly you asked me to be here! And asked me to bring Joel and Lizzie!”
“Whaaat I would never, you found this club all on your own, right Timmy.” Grian joked through gritted teeth, practically jumping up the rows of seats to ruffle his younger brother’s hair.
“Okay, but ghosts aren’t real, right? So how can we even hunt them?” Lizzie asked, a grin on her face as she watched the boys get sidetracked.
Grian looked over at her, the corner of his mouth quirked in amusement, and dropped a booklet on her lap,
“They’re very real, and this is all the information you’ll need to not die when we find one!-“
“-wait not die?!-“ Jimmy interrupted, but Grian ignored him,
“-so I got Skizz and Impulse to check out some houses ahead of time, to make sure they weren’t hoaxes,” as he spoke, he strolled back down the gallery of seats, “and now all we need is a car- Joel you’ve got one, right?”
Lizzie laughed, threaded her hand through her boyfriend’s—who suddenly looked rather sheepish—and replied, “sure, we can use my car,”
Jimmy and Grian burst out laughing, “I knew he’d never buy a blue car!” Jimmy yelled, folding at the waist with laughter.
Joel’s face went bright red, “yeah well at least I have a car!! At least I’m not stuck wherever I can drag my own feet!” He yelled, but that only made Grian and Jimmy laugh harder, even Lizzie couldn’t help but stifle a laugh, “and I’d rather have a bright blue car than have crashed my car!” He snapped at Grian, who suddenly looked awkward and started to sidle away.
“You crashed your car?” Jimmy asked, suddenly concerned,
“Weeeeeelllllllll, only a little bit, your car’s outside then Lizzie? Cool let’s get going!” He slammed the door behind him and grimaced, telling his brother and friends that he’d somehow become immortal was definitely not the plan here. Thankfully they didn’t push, quickly following him as Joel calmed down and was now just grumbling about how he’d wanted a green car but couldn’t afford a good one and Lizzie had wanted a pink one so they’d compromised with the make she’d wanted in a colour they both liked.
Jimmy and Grian exchanged a glance as he called shotgun and they slid into the back seats, crushed against a window beside a large dog bed taking up most of the space.
Jimmy screamed like a baby when Grian opened the door and the lights flickered out (to be fair Lizzie yelped and Joel nearly fell down the front steps, but it was funnier to mock Jimmy for it).
“Good, it knows we’re here!” Grian laughed, his pencil scribbling in a notebook held up to the fading light through the window. He tapped his pencil next to a small tick box, contemplating whether it was too soon to call the evidence or not, then slammed the book closed—making Jimmy jump away from a frightening mirror he’d been glancing at—and flicked on a torch.
“Do you have torches for the rest of us?” Lizzie asked, wary to move away from the open door while Joel opened and closed draws and cupboards, apparently, without a care in the world now that he’d gotten over his jump with the lights, leaving Grian with a confused look on his face.
“You mean you didn’t bring any yourselves from the- ohh right, no van,” he laughed, “I’ll see what else I’ve got, but the power’s in the utility room according to the map Skizz drew for me if anyone wants to go deal with that,”
“G, you think any of us could fix the electrical system of this place?? Think about who you’re talking to!”
Grian groaned at his brother and shoved a headlamp into his hands as he stomped towards the utility room, his torch in one hand, the other clutching his spirit box; twisting the antenna until the numbers were clear, dipping up and down as he moved through the house.
“See, it’s easy!” He called back, flicking up a row of switches, wincing at the bright lights, “all the ghost does is short circuit the system, but all the houses we visit have a fuse box that stops the damage and anything dangerous, I think, so flicking the switches brings back the power easy enough.. so long as it’s not a raiju, those guys get annoying near electronics,”
Jimmy laughed as he turned to Lizzie and Joel, “do you hear this guy??” He cleared his throat and mimicked Grian’s voice, “oh yeah I’m Grian, I can’t pass an electronics test to save my life because I’m too busy staring at the cute teacher, but I know how to fix a house’s power when it’s been cut off by a ghost!”
“HEY-“ Grian’s red face popped around the corner as Lizzie wheezed with laughter, but when she turned to see how Joel had reacted he was gone.
A scream pierced the air.
Lizzie sprinted through the house towards the kitchen from which the shriek had come from, eyes wide with terror and hands squeezed into fists, as if that would do anything against the noncorporeal. Jimmy was half a step behind, only his timidity keeping his long strides from overtaking hers.
Grian, meanwhile, strolled away from Joel’s soon-to-be-corpse; he picked up items seemingly at random: a picture, a deck of cards, a shriveled hand, a doll, a mirror off the wal- wait what was that one again?
“Yes! Monkey paw! No need to stress guys, we can figure out the ghost easy now- oh yeah and bring Joel back too,”
His only response was the faint sound of sobbing from another room, his brow furrowed as he started walking over, was it from the ghost? If so that meant it couldn’t be a myling- oh wait it wasn’t hunting, myling was still on the table.
Grian froze. Oh. Oh.
Joel couldn’t come back. He broke into a run. Joel wasn’t immortal. His breathing quickened, shallow and terrified, clouding in front of him. Joel couldn’t come back. He grabbed Jimmy and shoved him towards the door, deaf to his protests and strong enough to get him out and slam the door. The monkey paw cracked in his hand and he forced himself to relax enough not to crush it as he turned back to the kitchen, actually looking at the scene before him.
Joel lay on the ground, head turned away, chest still. Lizzie knelt beside him, cupping his face in her hand, tears streaming down her face as she crushed the folds of her skirt as if scared to hold him with both hands. Grian felt sick.
“I wish for life.” His voice sounded hollow to himself, somehow echoing in the small room. The blinds rustled in an imaginary whirlwind, lamps shook and closet doors banged and a howl sent a shiver down his spine in a familiar way.
Lizzie looked moments away from snapping for the first time.. well, ever, she never got angry, but right now she looked far more lethal than any ghost.
Joel coughed. Relief flooded the room like sunlight, and Lizzie managed to smile.
“I guess you don’t get my life insurance anymore, Liz,”
Grian laughed, and Lizzie quickly joined in, leaning down and kissing her boyfriend’s cheek,
“I guess not just yet, but if Grian keeps up this club maybe I will in the future,”
“Speaking of, Joel, did you see the ghost after you died? Did it seem to be blinking weirdly or was it relatively normal? Did it grab any of the door handles or touch anything especially?”
“Gri, I just died. And how the hell am I supposed to see the ghost’s eyes?”
Grian laughed like they were missing something, Lizzie and Joel just looked at each other, and Jimmy slammed through the door—having finally found the spare key still in the lock—wild with fear.
“GRIAN WHAT THE- WHAT DID YOU DO???” He shrieked, seeing Joel sit up and clutching a crucifix in his hands like his life depended on it, and depending on what the ghost was it actually might.
“Oh just some necromancy, ya know, bringing Joel back to life with the power of a long forgotten- uh- monkey, ah speaking of, congrats you two: you just survived your first hunt, yay,”
The silence that followed was one of confusion, extending until Grian sighed and asked—as though they were the ones being unreasonable—“did you guys not read the booklets I gave you?”
More silence.
“You gave them to us half an hour ago!” Jimmy blurted out, “how could we have read them that fast they were like twenty pag-“ a ghostly wail cut him off and he turned on his heel and sprinted towards the door, glad to find it unlocked still. Joel and Lizzie had also helped each other to their feet and moved towards the door, stumbling, the only one unphased was Grian.
“Alright alright alright,” he laughed, made a note in that same scruffy notebook, and sauntered out of the front door, the other three following behind like ducks following their mother.
“Since you three didn’t read my brilliantly written booklet, I’ll explain the basics,” he punctuated the last word by slapping his notebook onto his other hand.
“In your booklets is a list of all the different types of ghosts we could encounter, put together by myself and Impulse mostly, and a list of evidence that the ghosts can give us; since we’re headed to fairly easy jobs with this club each ghost will give us three different pieces of evidence, and that will tell us what the ghost is; but each ghost also has a unique.. ability I guess? That can tell us what sort it is: Demons start hunts really early, Shades are really shy, bla bla bla,”
Jimmy held up his hand—Joel badly hid a snicker—“G, how the heck did you bring Joel back to life??”
Ah-
“Very good question Jimothy-
“-teacher’s pet-“
“-that was by a cursed item, ghosts sometimes make them appear and we can use them to our advantage…” Grian’s eyes lit up and he launched into a rant about how exactly they worked, pacing back and forth discussing how it worked seemingly with himself, seeing as how Lizzie was flicking through the booklet with one hand (her other holding Joel’s tightly; she hadn’t let go of him since Grian had brought him back), Joel was mocking Grian and Jimmy was looking more and more confused and terrified with every passing second.
“Grian, what’s the actual job here?” Lizzie cut in, interrupting Grian as it became quickly clear he could keep talking for hours and not get moving.
“Oh- right,” he looked a little sheepish, “we go in, set up our various equipment and try not to die too much, then we send in some of our exorcist friends to set up the proper ritual and the ghost is gone! Sometimes we do the ritual, if the homeowners pay us or if it’s an especially dangerous situation, ya know?”
He flipped a clasp open at a holster on his waist and pulled out a small metal box with buttons and antenna (the same one he’d just been holding before Joel had died) that he carefully adjusted with the same care as though he was dressing a baby, then he threw his bag to Lizzie—somehow deemed the most responsible—with the announcement;
“Choose some gear and let’s actually get some evidence, WOO!” The last word punctuated by him kicking the door open (and then gingerly checking to make sure he hadn’t damaged it, this wasn’t his house after all).
The trio of beginners looked at each other and then grabbed items from the bag: Jimmy reached to go first but was elbowed out of the way by Joel, who promptly let Lizzie grab something instead. She took a glow stick, already faintly glowing purple—ultraviolet light—then Joel took a complicated looking machine that fit in the palm of his hand, similar to Grian’s—an EMF box—and finally Jimmy took a microphone with a large glass disc—parabadotical mic—even though he knew he might break it.
“Ah! Perfect Joel! Can you wander around and figure out the ghost-y room? Just yell if it lights up to five, and Lizzie you need to keep an eye out for anything that moves on it’s own, then shine the light and yell if you see any handprints or footprints, and-“ Grian groaned in annoyance when he saw what Jimmy was carrying, “-aw come on Tim, the parabadocical?? Really! That’s nearly as bad to start as Scar’s new love of the sound sensors!”
“Uh, Grian, don’t you mean parabolic?”
“Sure! The parabolly! Now go set up some cameras, I think I packed a couple,”
His words flowed through the quiet like lightning cutting through the dark sky, almost faster than you can comprehend and blindingly bright with energy, so Joel snatched the parabolic microphone from Jimmy, pressed it near his mouth, and blew a raspberry into its amplifying disc, grinning at Lizzie’s laugh and Timmy’s snickering.
Then the box in Joel’s other hand lit up and he yelled, flinging the thing into a wall.
Lizzie grabbed his arm tighter, keeping her hand interlaced with his and grabbing higher up his arm as if trying to anchor him beside her. Grian, meanwhile, raced over to the small box cheering when he read off the scale on its small digital screen,
“EMF five guys! That rules out a bunch!” A patting down of his pockets revealed his pencil was tucked behind an ear and then furious scribbles in that notebook he seemed to draw from pockets that couldn’t be big enough to hold it, on a page that looked to already be used when Jimmy glanced over his brother’s shoulder.
“Grian, how do we actually do this? You haven’t told us much at all! What does that even mea-“
“OH MY GOSH THERES A HAND!” Lizzie yelled, as the ultraviolet light showed a clear purple handprint on the door to the bathroom. Grian laughed—a sound that was really starting to grate on Jimmy’s ears—and his pencil scratched on the worn page; but then he smiled and Jimmy’s stomach dropped. He knew that look.
His fear only grew as a hand clamped around his arm and drew him to the front door.
“If I tell you my secrets.. the ghost won’t kill you.” Grian giggled, like this was all some game, like Joel hadn’t died in front of him and he was somehow back, like ghosts weren’t real. He held up the monkey paw, that disgusting shriveled hand cut off at the wrist.
Then, three things happened in very quick succession:
First, Grian spoke again, “I wish to see the ghost!”
Second, two hands on his chest shoved him backwards into the house as the front door slammed between him and his frustrating brother.
Three, the lights flickered and a haunting wail split the silence.
Only one of them reacted swiftly, and even then it wasn’t fast enough: Jimmy slammed a hand over his mouth in a pathetic attempt to stifle his breathing, and scrambled back behind a couch as a figure blinked in and out of reality.
It’s skin was grey and- and- and it was looking right at him. It’s eyes were glassy and suddenly it was above him, leering there, like it was enjoying watching him terrified, it’s hands were cold around his neck and he heard screeching and Grian’s laughter and arms around his chest trying to pull him away from the invisible thing killing him and it was cold. Then everything went black.
And then… he was back? No- not quite, he looked down at his own corpse and if he still had a stomach he was sure he would’ve hurled, but as it was he didn’t, just a spectre, just watching.
He turned to see Lizzie checking his pulse and Joel—still shrieking what Jimmy could now hear as “THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU”—held a crucifix above them. The ghost let out a wail like nothing he’d heard before and Lizzie shuddered, pulling Joel away from the noise—could they not see it as like he now could? A perk of being dead he guessed—and he dropped the crucifix, Jimmy hoped it might help but the ghost didn’t even react, chasing after the duo as they made a break for the front door. It was locked.
“GRIAN UNLOCK THE DOOR!”
“THIS ISNT FUNNY GRI!”
Jimmy glanced out the window to see Grian giggling as he made notes through the window, but when he actually saw the terrified looks on their faces he sighed and said in a voice far too calm for the situation in Jimmy’s humble—dead—opinion.
“Get into the cupboard, there’s an empty one in the kitchen, looks more like a wardrobe and it’s big enough for both of yoUU OOH-“ his voice went shrill at the end as the ghost blinked in only a few meters away from Lizzie, reaching out for her with hands drenched in dried blood.
Joel must’ve seen it out of the corner of his eyes because he pulled Lizzie’s arm and ran over to the kitchen, but as Jimmy watched, something curious happened: the ghost sped up to chase them, but as soon as it got too close it slowed down again, was that important?
Grian would know for sure, was there anything he could do though?? He was dead. Hang on, maybe.. Jimmy reached for the nearest object—an empty can of some sort—and yes! He picked it up and might’ve laughed if he wasn’t still so terrified of the ghost somehow killing him again. He ran towards the front door and passed right through, except.. he left the can behind, it clattered to the ground firmly and solidly inside the house.
He grabbed the doormat and his hands passed right through? Was there a limit to the size of objects he could pick up then? If only he’d read that booklet Grian had given them- wow.. that was not a phrase he’d ever thought was going to pass through his head. Jimmy rolled his eyes at the expression he could imagine on his brother’s face if he admitted that particular fact.
A slam made him jolt, right, right right right he couldn’t forget, Lizzie and Joel were still in that terrifying house hiding from the ghost, he grabbed the notebook out of Grian’s hand and shook it in the air. Grian screamed—he couldn’t pretend that it wasn’t satisfying to hear him scream like that for once—but it turned to laughter as he realized what was going on.
“Jimmy??? Have you figured something out?”
Jimmy nodded and started to explain, but quickly realised he couldn’t be seen or heard, so.. he flipped the notebook to a blank page and snatched the pencil from his brother’s other hand to write: ‘went fast, then slow when it got close??’ For some reason writing that made Jimmy feel… exhausted… he dropped the items before Grian could grab them and stood, feeling the kind of exhaustion you feel after pulling an all-nighter, hoping it had been helpful.
“Your handwriting is awful Tim, buuut I get what you mean, I guess-“ he cut himself off with scribbling on his notebook, back to the same page as earlier, Jimmy caught sight of ‘EMF5’ and ‘UV’ being circled, then additional notes of ‘fuse box ???’ And ‘speed with L.O.S increased’.
Honestly it was all way above Jimmy’s head, but he hoped it would give them an answer.
Grian was only drawn from his deliberating when he heard a soft ‘click’ that he knew meant the door was open and the hunt over; success! He strolled over and threw it open with a grin.
“It’s safe guys! So stop snogging in the cupboard and witness my brilliance in person! Plus we need to revive Jimmy and there’s only one wish left on this monkey paw so out you come!”
Lizzie and Joel shuffled out of the cupboard cautiously—both Grian and Jimmy pretended not to notice the way Joel’s hair was more ruffled than when he’d gone in, or the way Lizzie’s lipstick was a little smudged—and sprinted toward the door, evidently terrified of another hunt, and Grian’s hands found their way to theirs, as he said uncharacteristically seriously,
“I’m sorry for not warning you guys better, I should’ve explained better before we jumped into an actual haunting, next time I’ll let you know more about how this all works,” but before they could sit in his sincerity he released their hands, scooped up another—the withered monkey paw—and strolled through the front door, shouting out;
“I wish for life!”
Nothing happened and Grian snapped his fingers in realisation.
“Oh of course! Can’t wish for that twice! Ah well, I guess we’ll bring him back the old fashioned way,” he cleared his throat, “TIM! We’ll bring you back but first you gotta have a look at the ghost list and let me know what you think it is somehow!”
Jimmy—stood right beside him—winced at how loud he was and pulled the booklet from his pocket to finally read through it, no, no, no- demon?? Huh, cool but not that one, did this sound right? A revanent? It was said to move pretty fast, and it looked like an angry sort of ghost and it had certainly felt angry to Jimmy. Now he just had to tell Grian that somehow- aaand he was dragging Jimmy’s corpse out the front door- oh oh god- oh he really hoped he hadn’t broken any of his bones- that would definitely leave some bruises he’d be feeling in the morning… if he was back in his body by then.
He grabbed a bottle and a handful of cutlery from the kitchen, then hit his brother on the shoulder to get his attention and carefully spelt out ‘R E V A-‘
“-oh! You think it’s a revanent? Well if that’s your guess,” Grian kept talking as he walked out of the room, not even trying to check if Jimmy was following (he was, to be fair, but still) and then out of the front door to where Lizzie and Joel were arguing- but not over the dangers, over what the ghost might be.
“No! It wasn’t fast like that!”
“Yeah but it killed you when the lights came on!”
“Well- okay, maybe, but what if it’s a shade!”
“Joel- if it was a shade it wouldn’t have killed you! Shades are shy!”
“Fine! You’re right! It’s probably a Jinn!”
“I see Lizzie’s got the knack for figuring it out, I think it’s a Jinn too and I always trust my gut,”
“Traitor,” Joel grumbled, “where’s Jimmy?”
Grian nodded towards the corpse of his brother with an astonishingly calmness, more concerned with rummaging in his bag for… a file? He flipped through it and Jimmy, watching over his shoulder, saw images of the house they’d just been in, and a couple of some guy he swore he recognised along with- was that Tango’s brother Impulse?
“Aaaaaand the ghost is-“ he paused for a drumroll but no one obliged so he rolled his eyes and said, “a jinn! Congrats Lizzie, key signs of a jinn are that it drains the sanity of a person before it hunts, and that it moves faster when it has line of sight and it further than three meters away, then it gets slower, plus we got EMF-five, Lizzie found fingys-“
“-the UV fingerprints?-“
“-exactly what I said, so all that means it was probably a jinn, which it is, now we can clear out and I’ll hit up Impulse to send in the exorcists! See you guys next week same place for another haunting? Yes? Cool!” He opened his phone and started typing rapidly, leaving the trio in stunned silence.
“HANG ON!”
“Ughhhh what now Joel?”
“What about Timmy?? He’s still dead! And exorcists?? And if you knew what the ghost was then why the hell are we here?!”
Grian grinned, and suddenly he seemed far more serious, he snapped the monkey’s paw in half and Jimmy suddenly gasped, his spirit pulled- no- dragged back to his body with a tug like jumping from a cliff. Then he actually gasped, in his actual body, and Grian spoke.
“There’s problem number one sorted, not dead anymore eh Timothy?” Jimmy just groaned at his new bruises, “the exorcists are just a couple companies we work with, they know what we do and sort out the actual removal of the ghost most of the time, since it takes a couple hours and we do not have the time for that! And third. This is a club, Joel; Skizz and Impulse went through all the houses set up for this ahead of time, I’m not going to send you guys into a house with a demon! Or a wraith! I’m not stupid!” He sighed. “I didn’t know it was a jinn though, I’m not a cheat,”
Joel had no proper response to that, just a grumble and stomping steps over to Lizzie’s car, but there was a grin on his face that Grian recognised: the smile of adrenaline, of nearly dying and getting through it, of the warmth of the sun after the cold chill of the afterlife. He knew it well.
Lizzie helped Jimmy up and they left too, maybe a little more amicably than Joel had, but only a little.
It was only as they drove off down the road that Grian realised-
“HEY! Don’t leave me behind!”
“Need a ride G-man?”
Grain laughed and packed up his stuff, threw it into the back of the van, and landed in the front seat with a crash beside Scar, and Skizz grinned from the driver’s seat.
“Gri- how bad did you traumatise them?? I want the details!”
“Oooh yeah come on G, how bad was it??”
Grian laughed, and then started explaining as they drove off back towards the uni.