Have Spacecat, Will Travel: And Other Tails by John Hartness (top ebook reader .TXT) 📕

set up a tripod low to the ground and focused the camera on where Mike sat sipping on his Dr. Pepper. He ran a cable to an external monitor so they could see the image that was being recorded and ran another cable to the portable hard drive Sam indicated on her folding table. This one had a square of white tape on it with a large capital “E” in Sharpie.

“You got any Coke?” Billy asked. Sam motioned to the mini-fridge, and he grabbed the familiar red can. Billy popped open his soda, unwrapped his sandwich completely to limit the amount of noise on the tape, and started rolling.

“This is Mike Sutton, and welcome to another episode of America’s Most Haunted. I’m your host for the evening, along with my cameraman Billy Colgood. With us as always are Samantha Chima, our technology guru and repairer of all things I break, and Jessica Bates, professional debunker and semi-professional ghost hunter.”

“I’d be a professional ghost hunter if you’d ever take me anyplace really haunted,” Jess said, leaning into the side of the frame and waving to the camera. Mike playfully pushed her out of the shot, then turned back to the lens.

“We’ve got a very special America’s Most Haunted for you tonight, as we investigate the most haunted high school in the United States, right here in Jackson, Tennessee, home to the one, the only, AMH’s own Jessica Bates!” Mike motioned for Jess to come back into the frame, but she stayed right where she was. He motioned for her a second time, but this time she gave him the finger.

“Well, looks like for once our Jessica has turned camera-shy,” Mike said, once again turning his attention back to the camera. “But here we are, at Jackson Senior High School, our own Jess’s alma mater, and site of one of the greatest tragedies in United States high school history.”

“Exaggerate much?” Jess grumbled.

“It’s true, Jess. Outside of school shootings and the Marshall football team plane crash, the accident here took more lives than almost any event in U.S. high school or college history. The whole basketball team, the coaching staff, the principal, and all the cheerleaders were killed in one moment.”

“Jesus, what happened?” Billy asked, leaning forward. He almost unconsciously checked the monitor to make sure Mike was still in frame, but he was engrossed.

“There are a few differing stories, but the official version was that a gas line running underneath the gym floor ruptured and sparked, causing an explosion that killed them all instantly. But there’s been some question as to why there would even be a gas line running under the gym, when the gas main and cafeteria are on the other end of the school. The gym didn’t use gas for heat, and the hot water heaters were well removed from the gym, so no one really knows what happened. Just that the entire basketball team and cheerleaders were wiped out in seconds.”

“Except one,” Jess said, not looking up.

“What?” Mike asked. “Except one what?”

“All the cheerleaders were killed. Except one. One girl had been kicked off the team the week before and was sitting in the bleachers when everything exploded. One girl watched a fireball burn away every friend she had in the world. One girl got to pick teeth out of her hair and pieces of classmates out of her clothes and spent weeks trying to get the smell of smoke out of her nose. Then that girl dropped out, got her GED, and went to work in a coffee shop two thousand miles from Tennessee and never looked back. Until today.”

“Holy shit, Jess. I had no idea…” Mike said. He held out a hand to her, but she shook it off. Billy reached out and slowly panned the camera to get both Jess and Mike in the shot. Sam saw him and shook her head, giving him a wry smile.

“No, you didn’t. Nobody had any idea, because I didn’t want you to. This part of my life was over, and I wanted it to stay that way. But not anymore. Thanks, Mike. I hope the fucking money was worth it.” Jess stood up and stormed out of the library. The double doors slammed behind her, and the rest of the team listened as her boots echoed down the darkening hallway.

“Well, that went better than I expected,” Mike said, polishing off the last few bites of his sandwich and shaking the last few drops of Dr. Pepper into his mouth. He balled up his sandwich wrapper, crumpled the soda can, and put the whole bunch into a trashcan Sam had taped to the counter as a makeshift garbage can.

“That’s setting the bar pretty low, boss,” Sam said.

“She didn’t shoot me,” Mike replied.

“We don’t carry guns,” Sam reminded him. “The things we hunt are incorporeal and usually harmless.”

“But Jess is neither,” Mike pointed out.

“True. But now that she’s gone, what’s the plan?” Billy asked. “We can’t do the normal teams without her.” The crew usually split inter gender, with Mike and Jess investigating one part of a site while Billy and Sam took another hot spot. They’d made it a point to split that way after the network pointed out the ratings dip in an episode where Billy and Mike went together into a haunted prison.

“She’ll be back. I have the only car keys,” Mike said. He stood up and moved around behind the monitors with Sam. “We got anything yet?”

“Nothing yet, but the sun’s not even fully down. I wouldn’t expect anything to start moving around until much later. What’s the rest of the story?” Sam said. Billy took the camera off the tripod and moved around behind the two of them to catch the monitors in his shot.

“They closed the school for the rest of the year after the accident but rebuilt the gym and reopened the following fall. A bunch of the upperclassmen transferred and moved away or did like Jess and just went for their GED