P. Stormcrow

It was like any other high school she had ever passed by, which made the yellow police tape surrounding the grounds jump out at her all the more. Men in hazmat suits ran in and out of the building while agents with FBI jackets similar to the ones Finn and Agent Jackson wore prowled the area.

Haunting. She rolled the word over and over in her head, still trying to wrap her mind around it.

“Ah, there he is.” Agent Jackson patted her arm and pointed toward a particular Fed.

“Agent Newman,” Jackson greeted and made his way through, lifting the yellow tape to duck under it. Finn hurried to follow suit.

“Hey, so they called the Strangers in.” Newman reached out and Jackson took his hand, shaking it.

“Something like that.” Jackson chuckled. “I want you to meet Agent Reed, my new partner.”

Newman nodded in acknowledgment and extended the same hand out to her. Finn shook it with a similar bob of her head 

“So what’ve we got?”

“It’s bad. I’ll show you.”

They followed Agent Newman into the school, down the now empty halls to the gymnasium where more agents huddled and measured every inch of the space.

And in the center, a body.

Finn’s stomach dropped at the sight and she tried not to hurl. It was one thing to see all the gruesome photos, but another to be in the presence of the broken figure splattered in the middle of a chalk outline. And yet she couldn’t look away.

“Joe Michaels. According to witnesses, he levitated in the middle of their grade’s assembly then dropped to the ground, breaking his neck.”

There had to be some more plausible explanation for this. 

“What line are you using?” Jackson asked, lowering his voice.

“Gas leak. Mass hallucination. This one had a pre-existing condition that made it deadly.” Neuman answered. Out of the corner of her eye, Finn caught him grimacing.

“Again? At this rate, someone out there’s going to connect the dots.”

“Hey if you have any better ideas, I’m all ears.”

It was then she glimpsed the long stares. The whispers behind hands. The sneers. Despite Newman’s warm greeting, she realized Jackson and she were not welcomed here.

“Excuse me. Move it.” A mass of pink hair pushed past two other agents. To her surprise, Olivia appeared, breathless with eyes shining. 

“Well, I’ll get my people out of your way.” With that, Agent Newman walked off.

“Agent Reed. How’s it going? Oh!” Olivia passed a nondescript black canvas messenger back to Finn as soon as she reached them. “I didn’t have a chance to give you your standard-issued equipment. There’s probably more than what you need for this case, so just leave the rest in the car. Jackson can explain what each thing is and how to use it.”

“Thanks,” Finn muttered. Heavier than expected, she almost lost her grip but recovered it in time and slung it over her shoulders, wondering what was in it.

“Ready to work, munchkin?” Jackson asked as if oblivious to all the glares in their direction.

“Told you to stop calling me that. It makes you sound old, and it’s ageist,” Olivia retorted, and glanced behind them. “Hey, don’t touch him yet.” For a small package, she had a remarkably loud bark. Not waiting for any response, Oliver rushed past them before the two other forensics could bag the body.

Finn turned to follow, but Jackson placed a hand on her shoulder. “Give her space. Watch.”

That she could relate to. Most of them liked to work in peace without an agent hovering over them, but what she wanted to know was what else Olivia could find that the others on the scene didn’t already.

The kinds of tools she pulled out were nothing Finn had seen before. Her mind wandered for a moment to the bag. “So what does Olivia do?”

“Forensics, tech, Callaghan’s assistant. She was a child prodigy, graduated from the academy five years ago, but has been with us ever since.” Jackson murmured.

“I didn’t think it was legal for someone that young to work in the FBI.” Finn kept her voice low too.

Jackson stage-whispered. “She’s older than she looks.”

Focused on the task at hand, Oliver made no sign of hearing the jab.

“Our department’s not exactly well funded. We all pitch in with at least one other job or more in Oliver’s case.” Her partner paused and a slow smirk spread across his lips. “Wait till you see the cleaning duty roster.”

“What?” Finn stared up at him in shock.

Before Jackson could reply, Olivia looked up and waved them over. Finn steeled herself and swallowed hard and was about to take a step when Jackson whispered in her ear. “Breathe through your nose. It’s easier that way.”

His breath tickled and her stomach did a funny flip, but Finn forced herself to ignore her body’s reaction and followed him.

“Look at this.” Olivia remained crouched but handed Finn what looked like a kid’s kaleidoscope, albeit much shorter. 

Finn lowered herself and tried not to vomit while Olivia directed her to where she should point the toy to. Still doubtful, she peered into the little peephole. But instead of an array of colors, the body appeared in red hues through a single-colored lens. Under the filter, a black inky substance wrapped around the boy’s neck. She pulled the glass away, and the mark was no longer there across the stretched skin. What the fuck?

She put the shard back in place and there were the marks again.

“What do you see?” Olivia cocked her head to one side in question.

“What the hell is that black stuff?” Finn asked and jerked her gaze from the body up to Olivia and Jackson just in time to glimpse Olivia’s smile widened and Jackson nodding in approval. But the significance of their gestures was lost on Finn.

“An energy signature,” the pink-haired girl explained.

“It’s what tells us that this case is ours. Whatever did this isn’t human. Maybe they were once.”

“Like ectoplasm?” The term popped in her head and she recalled those campy shows she used to watch as a kid late at night waiting for her dad to come home. Who knew she would live in one now.

“Why Agent Reed, and here I thought you didn’t believe in this stuff.” Jackson put a hand on his chest.

Finn opened her mouth to protest, but Olivia spoke before she could. “Ectoplasm is a lighter color, thicker and stickier.” With a gloved finger, she traced the invisible marks. “You see how it goes all the way around and how his face is tinged blue? His neck may have snapped, but I bet the actual cause of death is strangulation before he even hit the floor.”

Olivia held up what Finn could only guess is an EMF detector. “Yups, looks like we have a haunting on our hands.”

“But what kind?” Jackson muttered as he scanned the gymnasium.

“There are different types?” Aware of how shrill her question sounded, Finn cleared her throat and tried again. “What sorts of hauntings are there?” She had a hard time believing that sentence came out of her mouth. But there was a dead body, and Agent Newman had pulled out his people. So she needed to work the case, even if she didn’t believe any of this. She would go along, for now, and keep her eyes peeled for a proper explanation.

“Yeah—” Jackson held up a hand and began counting off his fingers — “there are residual hauntings, intelligent hauntings, and that’s if we assume that it’s a ghost of some sort and not some inhuman entity—”

This was getting them nowhere. “So what’s next?” Finn cut him off.

But her new partner didn’t seem to mind and instead grinned at her. “Let’s go interview some of our witnesses.”

“But we told them they hallucinated the whole thing.” Finn straightened. She knew it was her first day, but she was already tired of being three steps behind everyone.

“Don’t you worry. Jackson’s a master at this.” Olivia stood as well and took off her gloves to exchange them with another pair in her oversized backpack.

“Why thank you,” Jackson bowed with a flourish while Olivia rolled her eyes.

“Okay fine.” Finn struggled to understand how Jackson and Olivia could remain so cavalier with a dead teenager with their feet and annoyed, she stalked out of the gymnasium.

***

Finn followed Agent Jackson out of the school and into the field where the doors of four white tents flapped in the wind. Two ambulances parked beside them. 

“A cover-up?” Finn asked.

“Yeah, most of our department’s budget goes towards resources for these appearances. They’ll go through the motion of doing checkups and dismiss the ones that know nothing. Those that may have something we need, they keep behind.”

It made sense. It shouldn’t make so much sense.

Jackson led them to one tent and ducked inside.

A man with silver hair in a lab coat spun around from the bed and patient he was tending to, the seriousness on his face a start contrast to both Jackson and Olivia before. “Agent Jackson.”

Jackson held up a hand in greeting. “Yo Doc.” 

The older doctor patted the teenage boy on the shoulder and made his way toward them. “Neil’s ready for you.” The doctor left the tent without Finn catching his name.

“Hey Neil,” Jackson offered his best smile. “I’m Agent Jackson and this is Agent Reed.”

“Am…am I in some sort of trouble? Don’t you have to wait for my mom or something?”

The kid had a point, but Finn remained quiet. If this was her partner’s forte, she needed to observe him in action, to take a measure of him herself.

“Nah, not at all.” Jackson moved to the side of the bed. “We’re from HazMat and to be honest, the only ones in trouble are us because it’s been difficult identifying just what that got leaked. Maybe you can help?”

The lies rolled off his tongue with ease as Jackson flashed a reassuring smile. Neil was still frowning, but he lost some guardedness in his eyes.

“Okay…”

“Sometimes when a gas causes this kind of reaction, it helps to figure out what people hallucinated to narrow it down. So I was hoping you could tell us what you saw back there.”

A great shudder rolled through Neil and he picked at the blanket draped over his lower body. “I don’t know. It’s going to sound crazy.”

“All hallucinations sound crazy,” Jackson reassured, placing a hand on Neil’s shoulder. When the kid didn’t shrink away, Finn knew they had him.

“Joe is… was…” Neil swallowed and tried again. “He was sitting next to me when he started swearing up a storm. We all turned to see what was going on and he was being lifted like someone had him by the throat. I remember him kicking his legs in the air and almost kicked me in the head when he was high enough. But he kept moving higher and higher.” Choked up, Neil sniffed.

“What did you see next,” Finn asked, at last, softening her voice. She swung around to the other side and placed her own hand on his back.

“It went all to hell. Everyone was running away, screaming their heads off. Joe jerked in the air a few times as if something was shaking him, then when he hit the ceiling, he fell, like whatever was holding him released him.” He took a rough swipe at his eyes.

“Hey it’s just a hallucination, okay? Joe passed pretty suddenly. So this is likely your brain trying to interpret under the influence of the gas.” Finn placed a bit more pressure to let him know that she was there.

“Right, just a hallucination,” Neil muttered.

“Hey, so are you a horror buff?”

“What?” Neil looked up, both brows raised with incredulity. Finn glared at her partner.

“What you said sounded like something out of a scary movie. Some gases make you susceptible to influences from other things you’ve seen or…”

Neil shook his head. “No man, I hate that shit. The girls were playing some weird-ass stuff the other day and as soon as I figured out what they were doing, I walked the other way.”

Jackson’s eyes gleamed with interest. “Can you give me names?”

“Er yeah… Do you think they have something to do with that gas? Joe and I were just teasing them.” Neil shifted in his bed.

“No, I doubt they did anything. We want to see if they had similar experiences,” Finn cut in before Jackson could answer, watching her partner who seemed unfazed as he took out his notepad and a pen.

“So what are their names?”