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

“You guy said this place has been deserted for years, right?” Jess asked.

“Yeah, we’re the first people in here in about four years, as far as I can tell. Why?”

“Then what the hell is that doing here?” She pointed to the screen, and Sam drew in a sharp breath.

“What the actual fuck?” Sam said, then pulled the walkie off her belt. “Hey guys?”

On the screen, they watched as Mike and Billy walked into the gym and stopped cold. Mike pulled his remote mic over to his mouth from where it hung on his shoulder. “Yeah, Sam? You seeing this?”

“We sure are? What do you make of it?”

“Well, obviously somebody heard we were coming and decided to leave us a present.” Mike walked into the center of the gym where a CPR dummy hung from the rafters by a climbing rope. The faceless dummy wore a black t-shirt with the letters AMH in bright yellow on the back. It was one of the licensed t-shirts the network sold from their website. It was one of their biggest sellers.

“Mike?” Sam called over the walkie again.

“Yeah, Sam? Do you see something? We’re not getting any spikes. Are you seeing something we don’t?”

“It’s more what I didn’t see, Mike,” the tech replied in a shaky voice.

“What are you talking about, Sam?” Mike growled. “Come on, quit screwing around. I want to do a quick sweep of the gym and locker room areas and then find an open door so we can get out of here and go somewhere that Jess feels safe.”

“Like Chernobyl, or maybe an artillery range,” Jessica chimed in.

“Mike, I set up the camera in the gym and the IR sensor not three hours ago,” Sam said.

“Yeah, so?”

“So, there wasn’t a fucking dummy hanging in the middle of the gym wearing one of our t-shirts then! Don’t you think I would have noticed?” Sam’s voice was climbing, creeping into a frightened register. The young technician didn’t believe in much, which made her really good with the electronic gear, and really good at debunking hauntings. Truth be told, that’s what most of their expeditions really were—debunking superstitions and old wives’ tales. But this was something outside Sam’s ability to explain, and she was clearly rattled.

“That means we should have footage,” Billy said. “Right?”

Sam let out a shaky breath and sagged with relief. “Thanks, Billy. Yeah, as long as it didn’t get hung in the ten minutes it took me to run the cables back here, we should have whoever put that thing there on disk.”

“And that’s probably the same person that locked us in here,” Mike said. “You start going over the footage while we check the locker rooms. Are you still getting readings there?”

“Yeah, I didn’t put cameras in there, too many nooks and crannies, but the IR scans I’m picking up are really hot.”

“We’ll go check them and be back here in ten,” Mike said.

“I’ll go through the video and get a pic of our merry prankster,” Sam replied.

“I’ll rummage through Billy’s backpack for some shrooms or Vicodin. I could use a little something,” Jess said.

“Oh, not cool, little miss sunshine,” Billy said. “Besides, you know I never go anywhere without my stash.” He smiled up at the camera, patting his front pocket.

Mike and Billy crossed the gym floor to the far corner, where Jessica had indicated the locker rooms were. “Which one first, Billy? Boys’ or girls’?”

“I spent way too much time in the boys’ locker room when I was in school, so let’s go for the gusto and check out the girls’.”

“You’re just reliving some bad high school movie about cheerleaders showering together,” Mike said, pushing the gym door open. “Wow, it’s darker than the inside of my asshole back here.” He flicked on his LED headlamp, and the white beam pushed back the darkness a little bit. Billy switched the camera to its low-light mode and followed him out into the hallway. They turned right and kept close to the wall for balance in the almost pitch black.

The entrance to the girls’ locker room was only a few feet outside the gym, and the door swung open easily. Mike instinctively flipped on the light switch as he entered, chuckling at himself as nothing happened.

“You do that every time we’re in a joint with no power, man,” Billy said, entering behind him.

“I know. It’s habit, you know?” Mike reached into the pockets of his cargo pants and grabbed a couple of chemical glow sticks. He cracked them to activate the chemicals, shook the plastic tubes, and tossed the glowing sticks into the corners of the locker room. The abandoned room was lit by the eerie green chemical light of the glow sticks and the blue-white LEDs of Mike’s headlamp and Billy’s camera light. Two walls covered in blue lockers were revealed, with benches running the length of the room in front of the lockers. One wall of the room was partially open to a large communal shower, and the other spun off a hallway to a bathroom with what looked to be at least a dozen toilet stalls.

“There’s the scene where so many of your teenage fantasies played out, Bill. The girls’ shower.” Mike pointed his lamp over to the bathing area, and Billy laughed as he scanned the camera around the room. Suddenly Billy gasped and swung his camera back, focusing on the shower.

“Dude, was that on a second ago?” Billy asked, pointing into the shower with his free hand.

Mike followed his finger to a stream of water pouring from one of the showerheads. “I woulda bet anything the answer was no, but now I’m not sure. I mean, it’s on now, and nobody’s here but us, so it must have been on, right?”

“You’re just going to forget the whole ‘ghost’ part of our job description, boss?” Billy asked.

Mike grabbed his walkie-talkie. “Sam, are you getting anything from the locker room?” Nothing came back to him but static. He