SALT

From The Raven James Chronicles by B.H. Wydeven

When Raven drifted through the door of Mickey’s Place for the first time, Benny was hobbling behind the bar on crutches, a white dishtowel slung over his shoulder. He smiled with delight as soon as he recognized Raven.

            “Mr. Raven, good to see you again,” Benny replied as Raven approached the bar.

            “I’m impressed that you remember my name after that accident. How’re the legs feeling?”

            “Well I’m still here, a thanks to you. The legs will heal and so will the memories.” Benny dropped a coaster onto the bar. “What can I get you?”

Raven shook his head.

“Please. It’s on me. You saved my life. Let me at least buy you a drink.”

            Raven shrugged. “I’m feeling like a brew.”

            “How about a dark ale?”

            “I’d prefer something light. I don’t like to chew my beer."

            Benny chuckled. “So what brings you back to Lafayette?”

            “I never left.”

“I thought you were traveling the countryside.”

“I was. But I was traveling the countryside looking for a job and I decided to stick here in town for a while. I’m kind of broke.”

            “I can get you a job.”

            “You can?”

“Yeah. Ever been a bartender?”

            “No,” Raven said. “But I know my way around the bottle.”

            “Where are you staying?”

            “Nowhere yet.”

            “Stay at my place. I got a whole house to myself," Benny said with a smile. "It’s quiet and peaceful.”

            “Somehow I doubt it,” Raven mumbled, taking a seat at the bar. Benny placed a glass of light yellow beer in front of him.

            "There you go. Domestic light. After a few they taste like water."

            Raven lifted the glass with no reserve and took a long drink, as if it were the first drink he had taken in weeks.

            "So, where are you from?" Benny asked. Raven continued downing his beer until two-thirds of it was gone. He waited a moment for a response but never got one.

            A group of four twenty something's entered the bar and Benny spent the rest of the night keeping up with orders. Raven spent the rest of the evening people watching and drinking light beer. Periodically, Benny would refill Raven's glass without so much as a pause to see if he wanted more. Benny could tell by the tired look in Raven's eyes, he needed to forget something that happened somewhere.

            Most everyone who entered his bar had that look.

            But Raven had saved Benny's life.

           

            By about 12:30 a.m. the crowd began to dwindle and Raven seemed well acquainted with the light beer he had been drinking all night, downing a glass every fifteen minutes or so. By 1 a.m. Raven was leaning over the bar like a top heavy palm tree about to collapse. Occasionally, his head slumped over, the tips of his long hair dancing on the bar top. Once or twice, a few strands dipped into his glass, although he didn't seem to notice or care. As Benny refreshed Raven's glass, he managed to get in a question.

            "How did you save my life?" Benny asked. Raven hesitated at the question for a moment. There were still a lot of people in the bar, and he didn't particularly want anyone to know he could communicate with ghosts so well it had driven him to a strange bout of  alcohol dependency. He leaned into the bar towards Benny.

            "Can you keep a secret?"

            Benny leaned back as Raven leaned in, the smell of light beer on Raven's breath. "Sure."

            "I can see ghosts," he slurred, letting the S drift through his teeth into a hiss, "It's why I drink."

            "Drowning your literal demons. How poetic."

            "Not demonssss." Raven squatted the idea of out the air. "Ghosts. Restlesss Sspirtss who want my help."

            "So I was a spirit?"

            "Not quite," Raven said, then slumped face down onto the bar.

            By the time 2 a.m. rolled around, Raven was still slumped over the bar, one arm extended over the bar and his long dark hair piled in a heap. Benny shook him awake and he slowly opened his eyes to the bright ceiling lights.

            "You alive?"

            "Eeh," came the response from under the hair pile.

            "Ready to see the house?" Raven slowly lifted his head, his hair lifting up like strands on a mop.

            "Sure."

† † †

To Raven, the taxi ride back to Benny's house was a blur. When they got to the house, Benny, whose right leg was in a cast, mostly hopped up to the door, while Raven lurched toward the house on two staggering feet.

The ranch style house looked small from the outside, it's convex picture window in the middle reflecting the lights of the taxi, giving it the appearance of a Cyclops with one glowing eye. Benny reached the front steps before Raven did.

The living room was plainly decorated. White walls, an old reddish brown recliner and a long gray couch. Raven's first impression was that the house was cozy, and not haunted.

"Most of the furniture was my dad's," Benny explained. "I got the house when he died, I just kind of moved in."

Benny went to the back of the house and switched on the light in a small hallway.             

"In here is the guest bedroom. Might be a little dusty, but it's all yours. The bathroom is right next door." He switched on the bathroom light. Raven meandered into the guest room and collapsed diagonally onto the bed, face down.

"I'll leave the bathroom light on in case you..." Benny stopped short when Raven began snoring.

† † †

Raven awoke several hours later to a cold breeze on the back of his neck. It felt like someone had walked past him quickly and distilled his hair. Having forgotten where he was, Raven rolled onto his back and looked around.

The room was dark and chilly and he was laying diagonally on the lower half of the bed, his feet dangling off the edge and his shoes anchoring his legs down so much he couldn't feel his feet. He could barely see the outline of the door, but he knew where it was. The window on the other side of the room was a distorted square of light which projected shadows on the walls.

But that's not what gave him the Goosebumps.

At first, Raven thought he was seeing a bizarre design of shadows against the wall between the door and the window. But when the entity moved away from the wall and he saw its scarlet eyes, he knew.

The entity was 10 feet tall with arms that stretched down to the floor. Its head was oblong, roughly the shape of a balloon. Its eyes were a harsh glare of red, they had no depth or pupils.

Raven froze as he lay sprawled on the bed, staring at the entity, wondering what it wanted or even what it was. It made no sounds, but it’s presence alone created an intensely hopeless sensation that made Raven feel strangely depressed, merely out of suggestion.

But he knew better.

            Looking around the room, Raven attempted to repress the entity’s persistent influence. To his left, the single window let in stray streaks of moonlight, yet the entity’s figure was not illuminated.

Suddenly, the entity raised its arm, a long stiff limb with three pointy fingers which reached out and completely covered the window, turning the room almost completely dark. Before he could jump out of bed and vacate the room, Raven felt an intense pressure on both his arms and chest. His entire body was paralyzed. He couldn’t even move his jaw. His tonsils pulsed silently as he tried to shout. He felt a cold breeze drift over his body as the presence dominated him and the door gently clicked shut, pinching out the last sliver of light the room had left. The only thing Raven could do was close his eyes.

Raven was safer in his subconscious than he was with his eyes open. He was running through the waiting room to the hallway. As he rushed through, dozens of entities began shouting and whispering, the residuals meandered around him like inmates in an asylum. Raven didn’t make eye contact with any of them as he ran through the open gate, slammed it shut, wrapped the chains and locked the padlock.

He hurried down the hall, past the doctor’s office to the third door on the right. The door opened to an empty room with white walls covered with phrases. He moved around the room looking for a specific phrase; he read it out loud, in latin: Whoso dwelleth under the defense of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say unto the LORD, thou art my hope, and my stronghold; my God, in him will I trust.

Nothing happened. He repeated the phrase louder this time.

The feeling of hopelessness was the first thing to leave him, then eventually the pressure on his chest. He let in a long gasping breath of air. Suddenly, his entire body shook and someone was shouting his name.

Raven opened his eyes to a bright light and an unfocused face peering over him. He heard his name muffled in his ears as if from a distance. Slowly his senses came back into focus and the blurry image of a man standing over him took shape. The bright, blurry shape became Benny's husky frame back lit by the ceiling light. He was holding onto a crutch with one hand and shaking Raven's shoulder with the other.

“Raven! Raven wake up! You’re having a nightmare!” Benny was screaming. 

Raven took in the white walls and brown closet doors in the room for the first time. The bedspread he was laying on was waves of light blue with round swirling streaks of dark blue. To Raven it looked like the ocean.

The corner where the entity had stood was empty.

“You were screaming something in a foreign language. ” Benny explained. “You were so loud, I was afraid the neighbors might call and complain. Are you okay? You're freezing man! Do you want some blankets?”

Raven rubbed his eyes. His face was cold.

“I’m not sleeping in here anymore.”

“Why not? What happened? Is it a ghost?”

“Do you have any salt?”

Benny crinkled his nose. “Salt?”

“Yes, salt. Regular good old table salt.”

“Let me go and check.” As Benny disappeared into the kitchen, Raven ripped the sheets off the bed, grabbed a pillow and retreated to the living room couch. In the kitchen, a cupboard slammed.

“Looks like I got about half a container,” Benny said, shaking a carton of salt. Raven got up quickly and without a word, grabbed the carton, walked up to the entrance of the guest room and without hesitating or explaining, he poured a generous amount of salt in a line at the doorway of the bedroom.

"What the-" Benny stammered.

Raven looked at the corner of the room where the entity had stood. He could still feel an intense energy coming from that spot. Glancing down at his feet, Raven watched his salt line gently scatter in the cold draft.

“Do you have any packaging tape?”

“Raven, buddy, it’s 3 o’clock in the morning. Why the hell are you pouring salt onto my carpet?”

“There’s an entity inside that room,” Raven explained. "Relax, I can get rid of it. But no one goes in until I say it’s clear, okay?”

Benny closed his eyes, trying to find his words. He swayed a bit, feeling the comforting invitation of sleepiness numb his body. With his mouth gaped open, Benny watched Raven kneel on the floor, scrapping up strands of salt out of the carpet and create a solid white line across the doorway of the guest bedroom.

"Where's that packaging tape?" Raven said, frantically glancing up at Benny.

In that moment, Benny wanted to just call Raven crazy outright. But the look in Raven's eyes was not of a crazy person's. He was wide awake, his eyes large and alert, and yet only hours ago, Benny had seen this guy barely walk to the front door. Something had scared him sober in a hurry.

“You really do see ghosts don't you?”

"They're fucking assholes. But Benny." Raven grabbed a hold of Benny's crutch. "Right now, I need some tape to keep the salt on the floor. It keeps the entity in the room and away from attacking us.” Raven spoke with such convention and sincerity that Benny immediately went back into the kitchen and rummaged through the drawers until he found some clear packaging tape.

“What were you saying in your sleep?” Benny asked. “Do you even remember?”

“It was Latin. I was shunning the entity from this house.”

“Will it work?”

“I hope so,” Raven explained. He didn’t want Benny to know just how dangerous this negative entity could be. He wasn't sure if he could trust Benny with his most coveted secret yet.

The spirit that had been dwelling in the corner was most likely there because of Raven. He had found out a long time ago that earthbound spirits are drawn to him, a curse he shared with his late mother.

As far as he could tell, the entity was powerless; Raven had shunned it into the waiting room of his subconscious. But if he wasn’t careful, it could escape or worse, invite more of its kind.

Raven needed more salt.

“Tomorrow we need to go to the grocery store and buy more of this stuff.”

“Why?”

“We need to surround your entire house with it. Spirits will find me. But with the salt, they won’t be able to enter this house without our permission.”

† † †

The next day, as planned Raven and Benny went to the grocery store. Just before they left, Raven cleaned out two gallon milk jugs and brought them along.

“What are those for?”

“Just in case,” Raven said.

He picked the church because of its giant angular front doors and tall steeple.

            He entered the church with the two empty milk cartons, a bible and a cross. Father Peter came out to greet him, glancing over Raven curiously.

            “You are not here for mass, are you?”

            “Sorry, no,” Raven said. “I need two gallons of holy water.”

            Father Peter raised an eyebrow.

            “What is this for?”

            “Just in case,” Raven said solemnly.

† † †

TO BE CONTINUED IN 'SALT WATER'

DEMON IN THE WAITING ROOM

From The Raven James Chronicles by B.H. Wydeven
(reader discretion is advised)

No more than 15 minutes after Benny had locked up his bar for the night, Raven was on the bathroom floor, curled over the toilet, squeezing out an evening’s worth of stomach burning whiskey shots and a handful of sugar coated mixed drinks.

Since they had met nearly two months ago, Benny had seen this self-destructive routine nearly every night, but this time something was wrong. Normally, Raven would come home, pass out, wake up an hour or so later and puke with ease and go back to bed.

But there was no routine tonight, just painful purging.

At each extraction, Raven’s entire body convulsed like a centipede, purging, gagging and heaving, followed by a rumbling cough that ignited into spitting; more coughing and more heaving until his throat was raw.

Raven’s shirtless body resembled a tube of toothpaste being squeezed until it was almost flat in the middle. As Benny watched this horrendous act, he became suspicious that there were other forces at work.

When it was all over, Benny, terrified for his friend’s health, rushed to Raven’s side to help him to bed, the living room couch. As Benny struggled to transfer him to the far side of the living room, Raven’s head slumped and his legs dropped like lead. Benny readjusted the leverage on his crippled legs and strained to keep his friend upright and forward moving. As a bartender and owner, he had seen countless shades of drunkenness, but Raven’s was particularly unique, the only one he was reluctant to cut off. The alcohol, Benny had learned shortly after taking Raven in, keeps the literal demons away.

Eyes shut and tuned to a spinning bliss, Raven’s subconscious returned to that comfy couch in the doctor’s office just down the hall from his protective steel gate. But when he opened his eyes, Raven was overcome by a single level of darkness. The room had no dimensions; not even a window for the moon nor a thin glow creeping under the door from the hall. Nothing.

Something was not right.

The room should have been bright and warm and peaceful, just as Raven’s subconscious had designed it. But instead it was cold and dark and full of hate. There should have been no sounds, just peaceful room tone. Instead, a gurgly hiss gave the darkness its only depth.

As the hissing got louder, Raven quickly sat up straight and touched his face; his hands were clammy and his face was cold. The room was getting colder. Raven tried to calm himself and attempted to map out the perspective of the room, but it was the red eyes that came from the hiss that made his heart pound.

The eyes only appeared briefly from behind the doctor’s desk, and quickly they were gone. The hiss was rhythmic, fading in and out like a heavy breath. This was followed by a rapid tapping which sounded like long finger nails on the surface of a wooden desk.

The scratching and tapping was followed by a deep growl, one that suggested whatever was making the noise was creeping closer. Raven stilled his shudder breath and resisted against the terrifying images his mind’s eye created in the inky blackness. His imagination painted a crude silhouette of a demon-like creature with wide red eyes and yellow drool dripping from its teeth as it crawled over the wooden desk. Raven felt his heart beat pound in the side of his neck. The demon’s claws were similar to a hawk’s sharp talons and its skin resembled blackish brown bark. It crawled with its legs and arms spread far apart like a beetle with long jagged limbs. Its nails continued to click against the wooden desk’s smooth surface and it hissed like an angry cat.

CLICK CLANK.

CLICK CLANK.

HISSSS!

CLICK CLANK.

CLICK CLANK.

Instinctively, Raven leaned as far back as he could, but he could still feel the creature’s cold energy closing in on him. Suddenly, three feet from his face, Raven saw a pair of red eyes.

He could barely see them in the complete darkness, but the hissing told him they belonged to the same creature. As the creature’s red eyes glided within a foot of Raven’s face, he began to wonder who this bastard was.

“Who the fuck are you?” Raven shouted, his voice slurred, but his tone was harsh to maintain his dominance over the entity. Few spirits got past the metal gate, and when they did, it meant they were especially pissed off and neglected.

“I am Sonneillon, the demon of hate!” The creature growled in a deep, hoarse voice. “I feed on the flesh of the living! Cower before me and feed me your soul!”

Raven froze. The cold air made his body shiver, but he did not let his breath crack the air with the sound of fear. The darkness lingered. Even though his mind drew up the image of a nasty creature and the adrenaline in his blood made him tremble, he refused to believe there was a demon lurking before him.

“Demons don’t exist,” Raven reminded himself as his jaw trembled. He gritted his teeth and leaned forward.

“NO!” Raven screamed. The red eyes widened and blinked. “You are no demon! You are just a coward hiding in the darkness! I am not afraid of a coward! SHOW YOURSELF!!”

Suddenly, Raven felt his chest become heavy. His lungs seized and stopped taking in air. The red eyes were directly in his face. The creature Raven’s mind had drawn was now perched on his chest, claws digging into his soft belly.

Still, Raven had the strength for a single retort.

“LEAVE ME COWARD OF DARKNESS, FOR I AM A CHILD OF GOD!”

The creature froze. The fingernails loosened their grasp on Raven’s soft skin and he felt the weight ease off his chest cavity. With a loud, more human-like growl, the creature cowered away.

Suddenly, the bright white lights returned and illuminated the room the way it should have been, a dull doctor’s office with a wooden desk, a chair and a couch. Raven could hear the creature hiding under the desk, its breath reduced to heavy panting. Looking over the desk, Raven found a pair of painful red eyes, which belonged to a boy of about 17, but his unusual fashion caused Raven to do a double take.

The boy’s hair black dyed hair was wet and dripped over his eyes. Some of the dye was even fading out, disclosing patches of dark brown. All his clothes were black and soaking wet. He had a lip ring, two earrings in one ear and a studded nose ring. Even his pants had nickel-plated rings down each side. His long fingernails were painted black, although some of the paint was scratched and worn. Rings of black eyeliner seeped out of his eye sockets and past his bloodshot hazel eyes.

“That’s what I thought,” Raven said, glaring at the kid. “Who are you and why are you trying to fuck with my head?”

“I thought I could scare you.”

Raven laughed. “By telling me you’re a demon? Kid, I don’t believe in demons, no matter how many times you pissed off dead people try to convince me with your manipulation of energy. Now what do you need? Because I need to sleep.”

“I just need your help. My name’s Jason.”

“Well why the fuck should I help you, Jason? You’ve been fucking with me all night. Do you know what it feels like to cough up vomit until your throat is dry? I expect to throw up almost every night, but not like that!”

Standing vulnerable without the shadows to deceit, Jason looked like a typical, shy kid experimenting with fashion. He lowered his head as Raven screamed at him; his long hair concealed the shame in his eyes.

“I’m sorry I hurt you,” Jason said. “But I’ve been waiting in that room for a long time for someone to help me. I never made it to 18, and I don’t remember ever drinking alcohol. I just need your help.” Raven hated dealing with attention whores and Jason was no exception, but the boy’s sympathy was sincere. Still, the makeup dripping down the kid’s face and the many many piercings made Jason appear macabre.

“Are you a Satanist?”

“No.”

“Pagan?”

“I’m Goth, but I believe in God and shit like that.”

“Right. What do you need help with?”

“I want to tell my family I’m sorry.”

“How did you die?”

Jason lowered his head. “A few months before it happened, I sliced open my wrists.” He rolled up his sleeves and held up his arms, so Raven could see the crisscross of long scars up and down his forearms where he had hesitated. One large cut near his wrist was laced with stitches and dark red with infection. “One time I cut myself so bad, that I passed out right away. My mom found me and rushed me to the hospital. The first time, they thought I had done it by accident. But this time,” he pointed to the stitching. “They made sure I never cut myself again.

“All my life, I had always been angry at everyone around me and the world. I hated my parents, my teachers, authority. I hated my father for going to prison. I blamed everybody for the way I felt and the way I was. But now that I’m dead and I had to see my mom look down at my casket, I can only be mad at myself. I thought being alive was so lonely, but being dead and seeing all of the people I once knew live on…”

“…it’s hell,” Raven said.

“There are no demons or devils, but it’s the worst hell you can possibly imagine,” Jason explained. “I didn’t die by cutting my wrists. My mom and my therapist made certain of that. I spent a month in a mental ward and another three weeks out of school so my mom could watch me, and my therapist could ask me a million questions. But I had to find another way. One that couldn’t be stopped by them. So I jumped off the Thomas Street Bridge. I did it at night, when I could sneak out of the house and no one could stop me.

“But it worked so well, that they never found my body. The casket my mom mourned over, was empty. She had them bury an empty casket so she’d be at peace. But she’s not.”

Jason looked up at Raven with his greenish red eyes. In those eyes, Raven saw an intensity of sadness, but he also felt a fury of anger. It rose off Jason’s body like hot steam.

“They’ll never find your body,” Raven said. “Even if they dredge the river, you’ve been gone too long. The Thomas Street Bridge was torn down 10 years ago. Even if they went looking for your bones, they’d be scattered-.”

“I know. My body’s long gone. I just want you to do one thing for me.”

“What’s that?”

“Tell my mom what happened.” Jason said. “And make sure she gets into heaven.”

Raven’s stomach churned. “I’ll do that.” As Raven laid back onto the couch, Jason smiled a painful but relieved smile and showed himself out the door. As he drifted to sleep, Raven heard the metal gate open and close, the chains jingling against the bars. The last thing he heard was the fat padlock clicking securely into place.

† † †

THE WAITING ROOM

From The Raven James Chronicles by B.H. Wydeven

Raven awoke on a small couch in a doctor’s office. He felt dizzy, like he had just gotten off a roller coaster. As he slowly sat up, his weary eyes failed to focus. The white lights in the room were so bright, he was practically blind, but his auditory senses seemed significantly heightened. He could hear chains gently rattling in the distance. Using the walls for support, he worked his way to the door and carefully opened it a crack.

Outside the room was a long hallway with barren white walls. The overhead florescent lights flickered and several were dead, leaving sinister blotches of gray shadows along the walls, and deep black voids on the floor. At the end of the hall, about 20 feet from the office where Raven awoke, was a steel gate with large metal chains and a fat padlock sealing the hallway from the room behind it.

As Raven slowly made his way down the hallway toward the gate, the big round padlock knocked gently against the bars and echoed its steady tone down the hallway like heavy wind chimes.

CLANK

CLANK

CLANK

The other side of the gate, a waiting room, was ridden with obscure shadows and dim light over an array of chairs and tables. There was just enough light to see that no one was there.

When Raven reached the gate, he pulled on the padlock. The round heavy metal felt like a ball of ice in his bare hands. He let it drop and collide against its ringing chains and bars. A fine layer of frost shivered away as the dead metal clashed with the bars. Raven shivered and backed away from the gate.

A steady murmur came from the waiting room.

“Excuse me, sir?” Came a man’s raspy voice in a desperate tone. He wheezed and coughed in between pleas. “Sir? Can you help me? I really need your help!

Suddenly a human form cloaked in a white sheet appeared on the other side of the gate. A hand quickly pulled away the sheet and disclosed a disheveled man with short grayish black hair and dressed in a crude hospital gown. His face was pale as if he had just bled to death and his eyes were sunken in and lifeless. Raven took an instinctive step back as the man took a step forward and grabbed the gate’s bars, causing the lock and chains to jangle and swing wildly.

“Please!” He pleaded. “My name is David Fenton. I have a wife and two kids and I need them to know what happened to me!”

David was a burly man, about six feet tall with linebacker shoulders and a beer gut that tightened against the cheap hospital gown. As David stepped forward, Raven was able to see into the man’s soft light brown eyes and his soul; kind and frantically lost.

Suddenly David’s brown eyes widened and he let out a scream, but for some reason he was unable to make a sound. Looking painfully to Raven for help, he grasped the bars harder.

Something made him stop and look down at his chest.

A dark red stain had seeped through the gown. David watched in horror as the stain grew and grew until suddenly a large pool of blood had flooded to the floor, creeping towards Raven. David looked up at Raven with wide, reddened eyes, his lower jaw shivered under his gaping mouth.

 “How did it happen?” Raven said finally, keeping his voice subtle.

“I was supposed to have heart surgery,” David explained. “I have a condition, and I needed a triple bypass. They told me with my health as it was, there would be a risk of complications.”

Raven closed his eyes as the man spoke, and when he opened them again, the blood on the floor was gone and so was the stain on the gown.

“What does your family need to know?”

The man shrugged. “Everything! I wasn’t supposed to die. I have a will but-.” The man stopped to let his lungs catch up. “Why am I still like this? I thought when you die, your body goes back to being perfect?”

“Not if you have loose ends,” Raven said.

“Loose ends?”

“Do you have unfinished business with someone?”

            The man’s face wrinkled with sadness as everything that he ever wanted to accomplish and all the people he left behind rushed to the tip of his tongue. “I was supposed to give away my youngest daughter in three months.” Instead of turning red, David’s face instead turned pale and the bloodstain reappeared at his chest. He grabbed the bars on the gate to catch his fall, gasping in a single labored breath for a lungful of air that never kept its course.

Raven leaned into the gate, glancing over the rest of the waiting room, but all he saw was darkness. To David, he said quietly, “Listen, I can help you, I just need you to do me a favor.”

            “What’s that?”

            “Guard the gate while I finish sleeping.”

            The blood stopped erupting from David’s chest. “You’re asleep?” Raven shushed him and nodded.

            “That’s what the gate is for. But you’re turning my dream into a nightmare. You see, every night, I get myself good and drunk so I can fall asleep. Because while I’m asleep, ghosts like you won’t hesitate bother me and pester me. When I’m drunk, this gate is solid steel and protects me. But I didn’t drink enough last night so I have this.”

            Raven grasped one of the steel chains with both hands and it gently bent with ease with his effortless force. It made a crackling sound like Styrofoam.

            “I’m sobering up too quickly,” Raven whispered through the bars. “Tell me something, who else is in that waiting room with you?”

            David looked around. “Just a few folks here. I actually thought I was alone until I looked around just now. Everyone in here is just being quiet, keeping to themselves.”

            “That’s because they think I’m drunk. They see this gate and this lock and chains and they know I can’t be bothered. Some of the bastards in there have been waiting on me for months. But I don’t help the attention whores. They can fuck with someone else’s subconscious.”

            “You do this a lot?” David asked.

            “Just about every morning,” Raven said with a tired smile. He could see the understanding in David’s eyes. Raven could sense that David was in a lot of pain and that his family was going through a terrible shock over his sudden death. David’s pain hung heavily on Raven’s shoulders, but as long as they interacted within his self conscious, so did fatigue. The longer they talked, the weaker Raven got.

But despite his pain and desperation, Raven saw a kindness in David too. He looked forward to helping the man do whatever he needed to heal the wound in his heart and bypass the plane between the living world and the waking dead.

            He just needed David’s protection until he woke up in the morning.

            “I’m sorry I bothered you,” David said. “I just didn’t know what to do. I thought you were an angel or something.”

            “Not even close,” Raven said. “But I do help people who have died. But this time, I need your help.”

            “Anything.”

            “All I need you to do, is watch the gate for me. Just hang by it and don’t let anyone near it. If you have problems, shout for me. Hopefully I’ll wake up.”

            David stood up straight. “I can do that.”

            “Thanks,” Raven said, turning back to the office down the hall. “Look me up in the morning and we’ll find your find your family.”

            David smiled and took a deep breath, then exhaled smoothly.

† † †

A HOT SUMMER CHILL

                                    From The Raven James Chronicles by B.H. Wydeven

Raven awoke with malaise; the skin on his forehead felt stretched like a giant rubber band over his skull. His long dark hair was gnarled in a mess atop his head, bundled over his ears and tickling his neck. Sweat dripped into his eyes. He twisted his body, his bare back sticking to the couch with an adhesive of sweat.

It had been this way for the last three weeks as temperatures climbed into the high 90’s. The heat had become unbearable to sleep in and nearly impossible to keep down enough liquor to resist the haunting imagery he endured night after night. Raven peeled himself off the couch and made his way into the kitchen for a tall glass of water, then returned promptly to the couch, chugged and curled back onto the sweaty cushions.

A few seconds later, Benny came barreling in through the front door; his plump face was beat red and his forehead shiny with sweat. Then Raven felt it: the humid air barreled in like a hot oven.

“Good afternoon,” Benny said cheerily, slamming the front door with his cane. His eyes were glazed over and watery. His tank top was sticking to his plump build and his polyester jogging shorts clung to his thick thighs. He looked like a polyester - wrapped chicken.

“I made it to the end of the block today,” he exclaimed with a rough breath as he crossed the living room and into the kitchen. The frig door opened and slammed. Raven heard the crinkle of plastic as Benny opened and chugged a bottle of water, the thin plastic slowly impeding as the contents drained out. The bottle swooshed into a paper bag, and crackled some more.

“Man it is miserable out there,” Benny said, sliding into his recliner. “You just get up?”

Realizing sleep in the heat of the day would be ruthless, Raven slowly sat back up and wiped the heavy, sweat soaked hair out of his eyes.

“Yeah, it’s a hot one.”

“Hey so, I’m taking off today. I got the new guy watching the bar. My friend John and his family just moved down the street and he’s invited me to a barbecue tonight. It’ll just be a small group, you me, and his family. You okay with that?”

“Why don’t you take Sarah?”

“Well this is kind of last minute and Sarah has to work."

Raven wiped the sofa lint off his sopping back. “I’m not much for socializing.”

“Nah, you’ll like John, he’s a bartender at Franco’s Martini Bar. Besides, they have a pool and central air.”

Raven got up and took his glass back into the kitchen for a refill. Benny followed.

“Does he think I’m going?” Raven asked.

“I told him I’d be bringing a friend.”

“Did you tell him my name?”

“Not yet.”

“Well just- introduce me as… James,” Raven set the glass in the sink and cupped some water into his hands, splashing it into his face. Benny took several steps back, just in time for Raven to shake his head, firing off beads of sweat in every direction.

“This is why I don’t have a dog,” Benny said, wiping his face.

Raven opened the frig and poured himself a Bloody Mary.

“Go easy on my booze,” Benny said with a smile. “John likes to serve high shelf liquor.”

† † †

John and Dana McWalter lived only six blocks down from Benny’s in an old, two-story, red brick house. As they pulled up to the house, Benny looked at Raven with a questioning gleam. Raven shook his head.

“I’ll let you know if it’s infested,” Raven sighed.

John greeted them at the door. “Come on in guys, I was just about to put the steaks on the grill.” John was tall and slim and had short black hair. He looked like he was about to go swimming; he wore a half buttoned Hawaiian T-shirt and long blue swim trucks.

“John, this is James, a friend of mine. He’s staying at my house for a while.”

“Nice to meet you James,” John said with a smile. "Do you like steaks? I’m making New York strips.”

“I love steak,” Raven said with a smile.

In contrast to the aging brick outside, the interior looked fully remodeled and lively. Raven felt that undeniable central air hit his face as they entered the foyer.

“Guys, this is my wife Dana, John jr. and Olivia. J.J. just turned six and Olivia is eight months,” John said as they passed through the living room.

On the living room rug, the boy was playing with a Jack-in-the-Box, rapidly winding the hand crank. Each time Jack popped out and said a phrase, J.J. would quickly push his head back into the box and wind him up again to see how quickly he could repeat the process.

The spring-bound puppet that emerged had a white clown face with simple red shapes for facial features; eyebrows for triangles, an upside down heart for a nose and  lips, a wide red curvy smile with round dimples. It had a tiny red hat and a dirty white shirt that looked to Raven like a bizarre straight jacket decorated with little green diamonds. The toy looked far from new and the voice box sounded distorted as if the next time it chimed would be it's last.

J.J.’s efforts were overshadowed by a very cartoonish show playing on the TV behind him, featuring what looked like people dressed as life-sized stuffed animals, dancing and singing.

Dana was seated on the couch with little Olivia on her lap. The little girl bounced on her mom’s knee, clapping and cooing to the sing-a-longs. J.J. seemed to be deeply engaged in the Jack-in-the-Box’s limited phrases.

J.J. looked up when the guys passed through and his eyes went directly to Raven’s, but his hand never stopped winding. J.J. had brown eyes and dark brown hair that covered the upper half of his ears. He looked at Raven with a neutral expression, his mouth a straight line across his face, and his big brown eyes gaping wide.

Let’s jam! The Jack-in-the-Box exclaimed as Jack popped out, laughing hysterically. J.J. pounded Jack in the head with his fist, flattened the top with a click, and repeated, all the while his eyes never left Raven’s. It was as if he was testing Raven’s reaction to the odd routine.

John led Benny and Raven into the kitchen where a stack of raw steaks sat on a plate. The kitchen was designed to look like a bar. Above the counter island were a variety of glasses hanging from the ceiling. A wine rack was mounted to the inside wall and three bar stools sat snug underneath the lip of the counter.

Outside, Raven could see smoke coming from the large deck where the grill was warming up. The patio door was open and Raven could smell the intoxicating aroma of charcoal ready to cook. Adjoining the deck was a big, above ground swimming pool.

“Can I get you guys something to drink right away? You name it, I got it!” John said with a smile.

“I’ll just have soda water, John,” Benny said. John nodded.

“James? What can I get you?”

“Smoky martini,” Raven said.

“Ah, good choice. I got some Johnny Walker Gold for it.”

Raven’s face inhabited a large grin. “Excellent,” he said.

As John mixed Raven’s drink, the TV show in the other room went quiet, but the Jack-in-the-Box continued it’s steady jingle and phrase routine.

Let’s Dance! Raven heard it say, more laughter, the wind up jingle then, Let’s Sing!

“Here you are,” John said as he set the drinks on the counter and grabbed the plate of steaks and led the way to the deck.

Outside, the backyard was scattered with toys. Parked at the bottom of the gradual hill was a toy car tipped over on its side. A giant inflatable ball drifted gently around the pool. Inside, Raven could still hear the Jack-in-the-Box routine.

It was much cooler out than it had been when Raven first woke up. The sun was crisp orange behind the trees. In the distance neighborhood kids screamed and shouted, followed by a dog barking.

“It’s a nice house.”

“Oh it’s fantastic. Dana and I got lucky with this place. We got it on foreclosure for 65. We’ve been here three weeks and we couldn’t be happier. How are you holding up?”

Benny shrugged and tapped his right leg. “Living it day by day. I’ve been trying to go for a walk everyday, even if it’s just to the mailbox and back. On a good day, I can make it around the block without falling.”

“Fantastic man! What are the doctors saying?”

“The bone’s healing well so far. I go back in next week for a follow up.”

“Great, great,” John smiled through the charcoal smoke. The steaks sizzled and crackled, like scented candles to the summer stench.

J.J. came out onto the deck and ran down the steps to the toy car. He picked it up, climbed in, and tried to ride it up the hill. After a few attempts, he turned around and drove down the hill. Realizing this took little effort; he got out of the car, and dragged it to the top of the hill near the edge of the house, got back in, and coasted down the hill to great success.

About 15 minutes later, Dana came outside, carrying a baby monitor and a can of cola. She strolled passed her husband kissed him on the lips and said softly, “I got Olivia to sleep.”

“Good timing. The steaks are ready. Honey, you wanna go get the plates?”

As the last of the sun sank into the hazy horizon, they enjoyed their steaks on the patio table next to the pool. J.J. scooted up next to Raven, who was almost on his third martini.

Raven quietly drank his Martini and J.J. sat beside him, also in silence. As the adults spoke amongst themselves, Raven noticed that Dana and John were very keen to their choice of words in front of little J.J. He seemed unusually perceptive for a 6-year-old, a trait Raven encompassed when he was a kid. In fact, Raven was surprised at how closely this boy resembled himself.

The entire time, J.J. hadn’t said a single word. But as soon as his dad went into the house to restock the martinis, J.J. straightened himself up, looked up at Raven and said with a nervous smile: “Hey.”

“Hi,” Raven said, trying to sound as unslurred as he could to the kid.

“I have a girlfriend.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. She sleeps in my closet.”

Benny and Dana had suddenly turned their attention to J.J.’s unusual comment. J.J. didn’t seem to notice the odd expression on his mom’s face or Benny's look of perplexity. Instead, he seemed wholly fascinated by Raven for some reason, kneeling in his chair and making himself as tall as he could, so he could be almost the same height as the adults.

“Really,” Raven said, playing along, noticing that their conversation was at the center of attention. “What’s her name?”

“McKenzie.”

By this time John had just returned.

“Who’s McKenzie?” John asked.

“J.J.’s imaginary friend,” Dana said, a hint of embarrassment in her voice.

“She’s not imaginary,” J.J.’s voice got louder. “She talks to me. And we play games.”

John chuckled, handing Raven his drink. “Kids,” he sighed merrily. “Full of imagination.”

“She tickles my feet when I’m in bed. She plays with Olivia too.”

John stopped laughing. The fun dripped off his face like heavy sweat; his eyebrows curled and his cheeks inverted. It was clear he didn’t want his son telling silly stories to his company. But he hid the embarrassment better than his wife did and rearranged his face with a smile. “Okay buddy, I think its time for bed.”

“But I’m not tired.”

“Don’t make me count to three.”

Scoffing, J.J. clambered off the chair and retreated toward the house. Before he opened the sliding screen door, he turned to look back at Raven as if to say ‘You believe me, don’t you?’ Instead, his little voice cracked as he said, “Good night.”

“Good night,” Raven said.

“I’ll be in to tuck you in, in five minutes,” Dana called after him.

“Sorry about that,” John said. “The kids haven’t really settled into the new house very well,” John explained. “They both seem to have trouble sleeping. We listen in on Olivia with a baby monitor because she usually wakes up several times a night.”

“She wakes up giggling in the middle of the night,” Dana explained. “It’s so strange.”

“Do you think J.J. sneaks in to tickle her?” Raven asked.

“J.J. doesn’t sleep upstairs,” John said. “His room is downstairs, next to the kitchen. If he were sneaking up the stairs, we’d hear him. The entire house is covered in wood flooring, the staircase is the worst. Every footstep makes a loud creak.” He laughed, then added, “Dana thinks the house is haunted.”

“It’s not funny,” Dana scolded at her husband.

Benny looked at Raven, eyes popping. Raven tipped his martini glass back and finished off Smokey #4. He had anticipated a ghost free evening.

But he knew it was naïve.

Suddenly, a familiar jingle began playing in the living room. It made everyone except for Raven jump.

Let’s Dance! Sang the wind up toy.

John bolted out of his chair and ran into the house. “J.J.’s playing with the damn Jack-in-the-Box again!” He grumbled, booking down the hallway. “God I hate that thing!”

Let’s Sing!

Benny stood up quickly. Comfortably drunk, Raven slowly followed.

“We should get going,” Benny said with a disappointed smile.

“I’m so sorry,” Dana said. “J.J. is not usually this misbehaved.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it, we had fun, right Raven?”

“J.J.?” John shouted down the hall.

As Dana, Benny and Raven entered the house, J.J. suddenly wandered into the kitchen from the other side of the house, wearing his pajamas. The Jack-In-The-Box was still jingling in the next room.

“J.J. Stop playing and go to b—” John shouted from the living room.

“Dad?” J.J. said sleepily.

You’re going to die! The Jack-in-the-Box said with its sinister laughter.

“John!” Dana shouted. “J.J. go back in your room!” The Jack-in-the-Box was getting closer.

John appeared around the corner, the Jack-In-The-Box cackling in his shaky hands. J.J. retreated half way through the kitchen then stopped and looked back when he saw his father with his favorite toy.

“GO BACK IN YOUR ROOM J.J.!!” John shouted.

I’m going to kill you! Get the hell out of my house. Jack-In-The-Box chanted gaily, repeating the phrase with a rapid repetition that turned John angrier and angrier at every word.

John’s face turned as red as an apple and his hands shook as he debated what to do with the jeering toy. The Jack’s head swayed cheerfully as it chanted it’s derailed words.

            “John what’s going on?” Dana shrieked.

 “GOD DAMN TOY!” John shouted, throwing the screen door out of his way, the frame grinding furiously on its delicate tracks. John hurried to the edge of the deck, and with no hesitation or emends, threw back his right arm and sent the heckling Jack-In-The-Box flying through the air. It disappeared into the darkness, but seconds later they heard it crash into the swimming pool with a single lifeless splash.

Dana turned on the backlights. John was kneeling near the pool, completely motionless. The Jack-In-The-Box cried out with a distorted dying laugh, submerged at an angle, Jack’s plastic head bobbing above the water. The beach ball bumped against the edge of the pool in the gentle wake. No one moved or said a thing for several minutes.

A terrifying shriek broke the stale silence. Immediately, Dana’s body came to life as she recognized her youngest child’s cries. But it was not like any scream a little baby should ever cry- it was the loudest, most bloodcurdling sound any of them had ever heard, and it jolted everyone into the impulse to hurry upstairs, Dana taking the lead. John rushed back into the house, racing down the hall to his daughter’s rescue.

To Raven, the baby’s cry was as sobering as a horse kick in the face. He wasn’t sure how to handling the situation: a family slammed with poltergeist chaos, and he was too drunk to do anything about it. Benny, cane in hand, took up the rear, climbing the winding staircase slowly with his bum leg. Raven stopped and waited for him.

“Go!” Benny hissed. “You can help them.”

“No I can’t,” Raven said. “I’m drunk. John’s martinis were dirty strong.”

“You can’t pick up anything?”

Raven shook his head. “I’m not here to investigate a frickin’ poltergeist!”

Olivia’s bloodcurdling cries continued above them. As Raven hurried up the old wooden stairs, he caught the brief odor of burning wood. He realized then that he wasn’t drunk enough to completely deflect the spirits’ signs.

When Raven reached the baby room, he found Dana and John embraced with Olivia in her mother’s arms. Both mother and baby were crying intensely. As soon as Raven stepped into Olivia’s room, he felt a drop of about 30 degrees from the hallway, but it wasn’t the central air. He took a deep breath, leaned against the doorframe, and closed his eyes, honing his senses to the room’s untamed energy.

Something negative was in this room.

For several minutes, Raven stood motionless in the doorway, observing the energy in the house.

As he toned out the mother - daughter crying, he heard Benny climbing the stairs, one step at a time. He focused his senses around the baby’s room: there was a closet to the right of the entrance. On the opposite end was the cradle and against the wall to Raven’s left was a playpen and a toy box. And in that corner came a voice…

Get out of my house.

The Raven did not recognize the voice. He tried to sense someone else in the room, J.J.’s girlfriend McKenzie, perhaps, but it was just the four.

The fourth one, a middle-aged man who smelled like burning wood, was angry.

“Is he alright?” John said. The crying had simmered down. Raven opened his eyes.

“The name of the man haunting you is David. He and his daughter McKenzie lived her.”

“What-.”

“David is very possessive of this house but I’m not sure why. I think he may have died in a fire in the house. He wants you to leave.”

John took a step forward. “James, what the hell is going on?”

“Your house is infested with a pissed off ghost.”

“And you can see this ghosts?”

“No, but I can feel that they’re here,” Raven explained. “You need to either get this house blessed by a priest, or move out as soon as you can.”

“No way!” John shouted. “I love this house. I’m not leaving here.”

“Whatever you decide is up to you, but I’m not going to stick around to find out what you do,” Raven said, letting his slur slip. “I’m sorry this happened to you guys, you’re nice people and I had a good time. The poltergeist wasn’t your fault. Thanks for the martinis and steak.” Raven turned and hurried back down the stairs.

“Raven wait!” Benny called after him, but Raven didn’t slow down. Instead, he hurried out the front door and began walking down the street. Several minutes later, Benny’s van rolled up after him.

“I’m walking back,” Raven said. “It’s a warm night and I need to burn off some room for a six pack.

† † †

A thousand raindrops pounded against the picture window as Raven began to awaken. The humidity had dissolved into the drizzle. Raven rolled over on the couch to face what little morning sunshine had broken through the steady rain. Benny was sitting in his recliner, waiting for Raven to wake up. Among the empty beer cans on the coffee table, was a tall glass of Bloody Mary.

“John called this morning,” Benny said.

“Is he still pissed at us?”

“He’s not pissed, he just didn’t know what to think of everything. I think he was pretty disappointed and embarrassed of the whole evening. He did take your advice though.”

“Which part?”

“The moving out part,” Benny said. “He’s moving this weekend. For now they’re staying at Dana’s mom’s. The house has a For Sale sign up already.”

“Damn.” Raven sat up. “That was quick. I feel sorry for the kids to have to go though that. Seeing a ghost and not being able to tell someone can really mess a kid up.”

“What was your childhood like?” Benny asked as Raven took a long sip of the Bloody Mary.

“Not today,” Raven said in between sips.

† † †

Author's Note

All of the short Raven James stories featured in this blog are set chronologically within six months before the events of my novel Drowning Demons. The shorts are intended to explore smaller paranormal investigations that Raven and Benny encounter together.

While some character details may not make sense at this point, rest assured, they will with the novel. Also, the stories are not necessarily being released chronologically- for their correct chronological order, please rely on the "links and stories" list to your right. Enjoy.
B.H.W.

P.S. Keep in mind, if you've seen my short film, The Medium, these stories follow a rebooted incarnation of the characters, similar to the way Christopher Nolan's Batman series was rebooted after the Tim Burton series.

Legal Stuff: All stories published in this blog are original stories by B.H. Wydeven. All rights reserved. Publishing these works to other sites without the express written permission of the author is prohibited.

DELIVERY FOR BENNY CAVOTO

                                 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?"

Benny took the package and placed it on the hood of the van. He took a penknife out of his pocket and eagerly sliced the package's brown tape, ripping the flaps open and digging through the white packing peanuts. He removed a zip lock bag with a bundle of rubber coated cable with a small sensor and a red tip. "It's the EMF meter," he said, taking the sensor out of its plastic, giving it a brief curious look and dug back into the box, shoveling away packing peanuts like a kid at Christmas. He removed the main unit, a black rectangular device about the size of a standard bible. On the face of the device was a meter with a series of numbers, some increments of 5 and 10, one level went as low as .5. A long red needle bounced slightly on the far left side. Benny turned the device over and found the battery compartment empty.

       "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."

† † †