From The Raven James Chronicles by B.H. Wydeven
A pounding on the front door jolted Raven out of a deep, intoxicated sleep, but he remained curled up on the couch, eyes shut. He listened for Benny to move through the house and answer the door, but the sound never came. Rolling over slowly, bracing for the glare of morning sunlight, he listened again. The house was completely absent of any sound.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
As Raven allowed his eyes to open, his eyelids stuck to his pupils opening halfway just long enough for him to hesitate, close them again and snuggle into the pillow. Without opening his eyes fully, Raven could tell the day was going to be overcast- the sun wasn't burning through his eyelids.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
This time, his eyes blasted open and Raven sat straight up on Benny's couch. The pounding was getting heavier and Benny wasn’t responding. With a groan, Raven pushed himself to his feet, wiped his face with one hand and brushing his long hair out of his eyes, then sauntered to the door. He wondered where Benny was.
As Raven reached for the door handle, a surprising feeling overcame him. The person at the door, the person Benny didn't hear pounding….
(Raven opened the door)
…Wasn’t dead.
Standing on Benny's little stoop was a man in a brown uniform, holding a package under one hand and a clipboard in the other.
"Delivery for Benny Cavoto. Sign here please," he said.
Raven signed for the package, scribbling something completely non descript onto the line, thanked the man and quickly shut the door.
The package appeared to have some weight to it, about the same as a good-sized encyclopedia. Raven shook the package gently to see if it rattled. The label on the top said E-Bay.
"Benny?" Raven shouted into the adjoining kitchen. No answer. He made his way though the back of the kitchen, past the dark basement and up to the garage door, where a steady rumble of death metal bass rocked the worst of Raven's hangover back into consciousness. Raven paused at the garage door to grab the wall and halt a twirling dizzy spell.
In the garage, Raven found Benny working under his van, an old soccer mom-mobile that Benny had bought recently.
The music rattled throughout the two-car garage, a jack hammering rhythm of bass and drums. Raven closed his eyes and slowly walked around the van until he reached the source of the noise, an old radio with a cassette player, and turned it off. The music reverberated off the unfinished sheet rock walls a half second after Raven hit the switch, then faded into an echo.
"Raven?" Came Benny's voice from under the van.
"You got a package," Raven shouted out.
"Alright!" Metal clanked against the concrete floor as Benny dropped a wretch and slid out from under the van, the sheet of cardboard cushioning his back scratching against the floor under his thick midsection. He took his time getting to his feet, slowly straightening his knees, and using his walker to balance his large frame. While his right foot was no longer in a cast, he still couldn't depend on it for support. As soon as he was on his feet, he pushed the walker aside and grabbed his walking stick. He hated the walker. He detested the idea of needing one while he was still in his thirties. He had once made Raven swear not to tell anyone about the walker. "I can't believe it's here already!"
"Which one is this?"
"How do you use this thing?"
"I don't know," Raven said. "I've never had to use one."
“From what I've read, this thing is normally used to detect changes in the electromagnetic frequency.”
“Right. Which means if a spirit is using energy, it’ll make that needle move.”
Benny looked up from his new toy, a big grin on his face. "Wanna help me try it out?"
"Not until I've had breakfast," Raven said. "And you should probably finish changing the oil."
"Give me another fifteen minutes on this. There's still some Bloody Mary mix in the pitcher. Any visitors this morning?"
"Just the delivery guy, but he was alive."
† † †
"So where's a good place to go to find ghosts?" Benny asked as they pulled out of the driveway. "The cemetery?"
"You're not going to find a ghost in the cemetery. Not unless there's a funeral."
"How about a church?"
Raven took a deep breath. After two Bloody Mary's, he was feeling pretty good, but not good enough to block the communication of lost spirits.
"Let’s just drive around for a bit," he said looking out the window. It was early afternoon, Sunday morning and Raven was glad the sun still hadn't fully bloomed.
There was no ideal place to find ghosts, ghosts were everywhere. As Raven watched the people bustling along on the sidewalk, he suddenly realized where they should look.
"Benny where's the nearest park?"
"Well we got the square just down the street here-."
"Let's go there."
They parked across the street from a series of older buildings on 4th Street. The road was covered in red brick and the street lamps looked old fashioned, giving the street a sort of nostalgia look. As they walked up the street to the square, Raven noticed one particular building, which looked like it had been an old movie theatre. Now it had a green and white vertical marquee that said "Fillmor."
A half a block down the street, Raven saw a block made up of concrete paths, park benches and young trees. There wasn't much else to it.
"This is a park?"
"There used to be a factory on this block, but they tore it down. I think the city plans to do something else with it soon."
"Great," Raven said. He had been hoping for more of a quiet spot with swings and a baseball diamond, a peaceful place for peaceful ghosts with peaceful problems. Old factory sites brought horrible factory deaths. And God knows how many people had died suddenly in the old factory.
"What kind of factory was here?" They began walking down one of the wide concrete paths.
"I think they made chocolate."
They sat on a park bench in the center of the square, where the four walking paths came together. Benny began tinkering with his EMF meter, while Raven watched pedestrians walk by. Benny plugged in the sensor and flipped a switch on the main device. Nothing happened.
"Any ghosts yet?" He asked, the anticipation glowing in his eyes. Raven shook his head, glancing the needle; nothing.
"Did you put batteries in it?"
"Of course," Benny said. "Why?"
"Because if we do ever encounter malicious spirits, you're gonna wanna bring a lot of batteries. They drain everything. That's why we got flares instead of flashlights."
"We gotta go easy on those flares though, they're kind of expensive."
“So is getting arrested for performing an exorcism.”
Suddenly the EMF's needle twitched, causing both Raven and Benny to jump.
"Wooh!" Benny said, but Raven shushed him. Raven put on his sunglasses. If a ghost did pass by them, he needed to avoid eye contact. If they did, then the ghosts would most likely bug him for help.
Raven was not interested in helping a lost ghost today.
From their right side, a woman with shoulder length brown hair and brown eyes walked past wearing tight nylon sweatpants, her slim body molded tightly around the stretchy sportswear. But there was something off about her. Her hair was greasy and her face looked like a wave rippled beach. As she passed their park bench, the needle twitched, then spiked, peaking around the middle of the meter. Benny shivered and quickly looked at Raven, whose face had gone rigid and pale.
Raven grabbed the sensor from Benny and held it out, pointing the woman's direction. The needle flickered into a steady decline as the woman got further away. Raven had noticed distinctive red marks up and down the woman's arms.
"It works," Raven said quietly, shaken by what he had seen.
Benny shrugged. "What was it? What did you see?"
"A young woman, maybe in her twenties, needle injected drug overdose. I don’t wanna know any more."
"Well how close did she get? What kind of range can I get on this thing?"
"She came right past us, within maybe two feet or so," Raven sighed. “She got pretty close. Too close. I was afraid she was going to stop.”
"Damn. So I can detect ghosts now too."
"Sort of."
† † †
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