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Chapter 33 – Ghost StoryJack slid easily into his ‘Johnny’ voice. “Hey, Farrell! Get your ass in gear and videotape this crap!”
Alex pulled up the camera and pointed it at the moving pipe.
A threatening male voice howled, “Get oooouuuuut!”
Jack smirked. “Y’know, that didn’t really work for me when I saw it in a horror movie, either. Got anything better?”
While she held the camera on her right shoulder, she fished her fake taser out of her pocket with her left hand and pointed it at the pipe. She carefully said, “This is a taser. It doesn’t shoot little darts and send current through a wire. It fires an ultraviolet laser that ionizes the air so the electrical blast goes in the direction I point it. I have no idea what you are, but I’m willing to bet the electricity will really want to hit that steel pipe you’ve got. And whether you’re a real ghost or not, I figure eighty thousand volts will either fry you or disrupt whatever electromagnetics are holding you together.”
The pipe dropped, and even over the sharp ringing of the pipe hitting the concrete floor, she could hear feet running away for just a second or two. Then there was dead silence.
Jack reached into his suit coat and pulled out a real Taser. Then he made sure the doors behind them were shut and locked. He said, “Stay right here and don’t let anyone or anything out.” She nodded sharply and moved so she was right in front of the doors.
He held the Taser in one hand and pulled out his phone with another. Then he dialed 9-1-1. “911? This is Johnny Jacobson, the famous reporter. I’m at the girls’ locker room of your high school … Yeah, that girls’ locker room in that high school … Two parapsychologists came in here to look for stuff, and someone just beat the crap out of them with a steel pipe. We need EMTs and policemen, because the attacker may still be in here, and I’m guarding the door so he can’t get out.”
Then he dropped the phone to his side and casually pressed a button. Alex was pretty sure he’d just speed-dialed Riley. “Boy, I hope that jerkwad Rich Frank doesn’t hear about this and come over here to the girls’ locker room with his cameraman before the paramedics get here to help these parapsychologist dudes. That would be all we need.”
She watched as he casually pressed the ‘end’ button to end the second call, and then slipped the phone back into his pocket.
Then they stopped making any noise, and they waited for the sound of those footsteps to come back. If whatever it was didn’t have to make those footstep sounds, they were in big trouble. If this was someone with telekinetic powers, he or she would have to be able to see something in order to know where to attack them … unless whoever it was also had psychic powers and could sense them.
Or else there were cameras in the room so the telekinetic could watch them and see where to attack. Cameras in the girls’ locker room? Eww.
Okay, she definitely heard something moving over near the shower room. It sounded like another slap of a foot. That didn’t mean it was safe to move over and check out the injured scientists, though.
Jack muttered for her benefit, “I wonder how many of ’em might be in here?” Ooh, good point. Just because they had seen a pipe and heard one thing didn’t mean there weren’t other threats, most of which might be impossible to see as well.
Then he looked up at the ceiling and asked, “Hey, Farrell, ya think your fancy taser thingie would bust a sprinkler system?”
Ooh, Jack, you’re so much smarter than you look. She said, “I think it’s worth a try.” She cracked open the door just enough to slide the camera out into the hallway to keep it safe in case everything in the room got wet, and then she pointed her ‘taser’ tube at the far sprinkler head. She pointed her finger along the length of the tube, and she hurled a lightning blast. It hit dead on, and water started dribbling out of the sprinkler head for a second before it turned into a fine spray of water. She blasted the sprinkler over by the entry into the shower room, too. The water wasn’t raining down on them, but it was spraying over maybe a quarter of the locker room and slowly spreading all over the floor. A lot of it was going down the floor drains, but a lot was running all over the concrete floor.
Jack waited until the water had puddled all around the unconscious scientists before he moved over there to check them out. He very carefully didn’t move their heads or necks, but he checked the pulse in each guy’s neck. “They’re alive. Pulses okay in both, a little weak but not thready, and they’ve both got nasty head wounds. Lots of blood, and probably serious concussions. I have no idea about any other injuries they might have, but getting hit in the head with a pipe can’t be a load of fun.”
She whined in Annie’s voice, “Johnny, I’m surprised you don’t know that from personal experience.” But she kept an eye on the water as it sheeted across the concrete and down the floor drains.
Jack joked, “Well, I just don’t remember it clearly. Either time.”
She noticed that the clowning-around voice didn’t match the hard eyes or the dangerous posture. This Jack had probably survived years of really dangerous special ops and black ops work. Most people — even most highly trained soldiers — couldn’t make it through the kinds of training that Army Rangers and Navy SEALs went through, and Jack was probably just as dangerous as any of those guys. She really needed to keep that in mind.
Jack pointed across the room, and she saw what he had spotted. Moving carefully from near the shower area was a footprint in the water. A left foot. A left foot with no shoe or anything on it. Then another invisible foot came down into the water, forming a clear outline of a right foot.
Jack said, “Y’know, I was thinking ghosts at first. Or poltergeists. Or maybe something exciting, like telekinesis and psychic powers. But now I’m thinkin’ … an invisible guy. A naked, invisible guy who’s so stupid he attacked some guys with something visible. I’ve seen ‘The Invisible Man’ and ‘The Invisible Woman’ but I don’t remember a movie called ‘The Invisible Moron’.”
A furious male voice bellowed, “Shut the fuck up!” and charged across the wet floor at Jack. She had no trouble aiming based on the splashing footsteps, and she fired off an electrical blast at chest level.
“Aagh!” The invisible moron fell hard onto the concrete floor, and she could see the imprint of a naked guy lying in the water on the floor. That was all she wanted to see, too. Yuck. Okay, it was already more than she wanted to see.
Jack made a sharp ‘stay put’ gesture at her, and she stayed still. He said, “We don’t know if he’s the only guy in here.”
She said, “Or in the shower room.”
“Right.”
The doors rattled behind her, and Jack swiveled to point his Taser well over her head. A key clicked in the lock. A scruffy old guy in coveralls stuck his head in and looked at the body imprint in the water. He muttered, “Not another goddamn invisible kid!”
Well, it looked like they weren’t going to have to go hunt down Carl the janitor. He had found them instead.
Jack slid smoothly into ‘Johnny the reporter’. He said, “Farrell. Take the nice man out in the hall and get an interview before the cops get here. Use the damn camera this time. That’s what it’s for. Then make sure we get his address and phone number, and get him out of here before CBS News gets here and sees him.”
She wasn’t sure if Jack was going to do something drastic to Mister Invisible Pipewhacker, but if he did, she’d know what she needed to know about him And maybe he figured she really didn’t have the expertise he had on dealing with dangerous enemies, even if she did have superpowers.
She stepped into the hallway and shut the door behind her. Then she hefted the video camera up onto her shoulder and smiled in her ‘Annie’ voice, “Now let’s start with your name and address and phone number. If we use this on the national news, you’ll want to tell your friends, right?”
“Oh! Yeah!” So he told her all about himself, starting with his name so she knew it really was the janitor Carl guy the principal had griped about. Then she managed to get him focused on the issue. “Oh, yeah, it started weeks ago. Nobody believed me when I told ’em what I saw, I mean, what I didn’t see, but I know there was an invisible man running around the school. Maybe two of ’em. Not that they hurt anybody. Just a few pranks, y’know. And if you ask me, the folks who got it? Deserved it. So then I thought it stopped. I wasn’t seeing any signs of any funny business going on. Principal Baxter was pretty upset when a couple of the science nerds just stopped coming to school or something, because we’re not the best high school in the Bloomington-Normal area, and we pretty much need all the high scores we can get on the state scholastic tests. But then Monday, it all started up, only worse. Stuff going on in the girls’ locker room. The school nerds getting knocked down with no one there. I got slammed into closets maybe four times in two days, and there was no one there, but I’m sure I heard at least two boys laughing. And then the cheerleaders. Lemme tell you, that puts the wind up you when you know there’s invisible murderers running around loose in your school and you can’t see ’em and no one will believe you when you tell ’em!”
She assured Carl the janitor that she did believe him, because one of the invisible guys was out cold on the floor in the locker room after beating two scientists over the head with a pipe.
Carl fumed, “A pipe? I bet they stole that stuff outta my storage areas. Everything’s vanishing outta there. My toolbox, my doughnuts, my electrical and plumbing supplies, my candy, my … umm … medicine, you name it.”
She thanked Carl and told him how much she appreciated him helping her out, and she let him leave before the police arrived. Then she played her part and pretended to film as the paramedics rushed in with two gurneys and several boxes of medical gear.
She stepped into the locker room after the paramedics, and found Jack crouching over the scientists. He waved the paramedics over and moved back so they could work. Then she saw what he had done to the invisible guy.
Jack had taken a fancy ball point pen out of his blazer and drawn on the guy’s back. It was even creepier now, because now there was ink floating a few inches above the floor, and moving up and down as the guy breathed.
Jack stepped out of the locker room and faced the policemen. He pulled out an ID and showed it to them. “Department of Homeland Security. You’re going to call the number on there and verify this, and then you’re going to let my people handle this case. You have no way of dealing with what’s going on here.”
The younger of the two policemen looked impressed, but the older one looked surly and untrusting. Alex kept the video camera on her shoulder so the policemen wouldn’t get a good look at her head.
Jack looked at the surly one. “Yeah, I know, nobody likes it when some jerk comes in and steals your case out from under you. Especially not a federal jerk. But this is one case you do not want to be trying to write up and explain to your captain and the mayor. Come on in, and I’ll show you.”
Jack escorted Mister Surly into the locker room. About ten seconds later, there was a loud “HOLY CRAP!” About three seconds after that, Mister Surly almost leapt out of the locker room. He grabbed his partner by the shoulder and said, “C’mon, Jeff, we’re off to the squad car to call this one in, and then we’re gettin’ back on the street.” They hurried down the hall, walking about as fast as they could without actually admitting they were running away.
Jack grinned wickedly. She glared at him. “What did you do?”
With a smirk he said, “I might’ve let him put a hand on Naked Invisible Guy. And just maybe I steered him a bit so he put his hand right in an invisible naked buttcrack.”
Oh, gross! Jack was utterly … umm … Well, he was way too naughty to be a colonel leading a top secret Men In Black group! In fact, he was … really an awful lot like Sam’s colonel.
She carefully asked, “Is that all you did? Because you don’t seem real worried about The Invisible Creep waking up and attacking the paramedics and then escaping.”
He grinned. “Maybe I used my other pen, too.” He took a thick ballpoint pen out of his pocket and twisted it. A pen tip didn’t come out. A hypodermic needle did. She gasped a little. He said, “And you know, the pen is mightier than the sword.” He gave her a grin. “Knocks ’em out for four to eight hours, depending. He’s not goin’ anywhere on his own.”
Then he made a phone call. “Delta, this is Alpha. Authorization six baker seven one tango niner. I need a truck with one of our containment cells at the high school, and one of our possibles is out cold in the girls’ locker room. Warn our guys that the possible is invisible and naked. Have the truck in close-support position, and I’ll call you when it’s time for the pick-up.”
Once the paramedics wheeled the two scientists off to the hospital, Jack called ‘Rich Frank’ again. Riley and ‘Stewie’ showed up in under five minutes, so Alex knew Jack had called them earlier while she was interviewing Carl. And Riley had something Alex hadn’t seen him carrying earlier, so she was pretty sure Jack told him to go buy it.
Riley had a couple of cans of spray paint. Ordinary flesh-tone spray paint. Jack gave Invisible Pipewhacker a good coat all over his backside, which was so gross Alex couldn’t watch, and then let Stewie flip the guy over.
Jack called Principal Baxter to come down to the girls’ locker room. The principal showed up looking flustered. But that was nothing compared to how he looked after Jack showed his official Homeland Security ID. After that, Baxter was way past flustered, and pretty close to ‘I think I just peed myself in terror’.
Jack ruthlessly said, “Okay, Baxter, we tried to make nice, keep a low profile, but then we have one of your problems try to kill our science boys and smash all our gear. The U.S. government doesn’t take kindly to that.”
“They’re not mine! I mean, they might be my students, but I don’t own them or anything!”
Jack pressed a little harder. “So … who’s been missing from school since …” He glanced at Alex.
She said, “Starting this Monday morning.”
Principal Baxter winced. “Well, we always have children out sick … And we have children who have been gone for weeks, like that Grover Dunn and his friend Milton McClane!”
Alex suddenly understood the connection. She said, “That would be Grover Dunn, Junior, would it not?” The principal nodded miserably.
Jack snapped, “You’re a little too sweaty for someone strictly aboveboard. Call your office. I want the attendance records for every day this week. And if there’s anyone who’s not on that absentee sheet who turns out to be involved, I think the words ‘accessory after the fact to two brutal murders’ would look just excellent on your resumé.”
Alex was amazed. Jack was breaking Principal Baxter apart just like the cool police officers did to perps on police shows, like ‘Law and Order’. And Jack could be a lot scarier than you’d think if you just met him in an office or something. She hadn’t realized that before.
The principal pulled out his cellphone and shakily asked someone named ‘Ellen’ to bring down the absentee sheets for today back to Monday. When a chubby, middle-aged lady in a frumpy dress showed up, Jack had Alex escort her in and stick with her.
Jack looked over the lists. “Hmm. Dunn and McClane are still marked unexcused. Who are these other guys?”
Alex stopped Ellen from leaving. She said, “Ellen, why don’t you tell us who’s on that list?”
Ellen nervously glanced at Baxter, then went down the list. There were ten kids who were on all three lists. Only Dunn and McClane and someone named Michael Taylor were listed as unexcused. Jack looked over the lists, and then Riley did. She noticed that Riley reacted a little when he looked at the names.
Jack smiled unpleasantly. “Now let’s see if our problem child is one of your unexcused absences …” He leaned over the still unconscious guy and spray-painted the guy’s front with more of the spray paint.
Principal Baxter choked and stammered as he realized that an invisible guy had been lying on the floor not fifteen feet away. Jack started at the guy’s hair and stopped at the guy’s navel, so Alex didn’t have to look at a naked guy’s junk.
Ellen whimpered, “That’s Donny Thomas!”
Jack glared at the principal. “And that would be one of the excused absences? Or do we need to check with his parents and find out?”
Ellen burst into tears. “He made me mark all three of ’em ‘excused’! I didn’t want to! It’s not right!”
“Shut up!” Principal Baxter hissed. Then he turned to Jack. “Three upstanding student athletes, that’s all. You know how it is. We’re under a lot of pressure to have better sports teams after the last couple years, and we just didn’t want them in undue trouble just because their parents hadn’t gotten around to letting us know they were out sick …”
Jack said to Riley, “Get a picture of this guy and see if we can get it into the dictionary next to the word ‘slimy’.”
Alex asked Ellen, “Who else on that list is a sports star?”
Ellen sobbed, “Pete Rosetti and Mike Howard.”
Riley added, “Add Cindy Moore, the cheerleader, who was one of the people who found the bodies. She wasn’t absent earlier in the week, but she was marked as out ‘excused’ today and yesterday.”
Jack said to ‘Stewie’, “Sergeant, take these two back to the admin offices and see if they want to give you a different story now that we have reason to mark one of their ‘sports stars’ as the prime suspect in a grisly double homicide.”
Jack waited until Alex couldn’t hear the sounds of the sergeant hustling the two administrators away. Then he said, “Okay, Finn, what is it?”
Riley said, “The assorted distraught cheerleaders knew Cindy Moore was dating one of the ‘unexcused’ kids on that list. Grover Dunn, Junior. Cindy wasn’t home, but her parents told me where to find her. At her boyfriend’s house.”
Jack looked at Alex, who added, “And Grover Dunn, Senior is the dead chemist my people noted.”
Jack nodded. “So … we have a link from chemistry research at the plant to one student here, who was probably the first kid to go invisible. Now, if Donny the Jock hadn’t busted our infrared systems when he trashed Bill and Ed’s excellent adventure …”
It did kind of look like everything on that cart was wrecked.
Jack said, “So we scrap our plans for dealing with a major psychic threat. We just have to find two to four more naked invisible high school boys.” He smirked at Alex. “And I have a pretty good idea where to find one of them.”
Riley said, “Sir? It’s just that the kid’s going to win in a game of hide and seek.”
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This crossover is not one of our original set from chapter 1. It is the 1988 movie “The Invisible Kid” starring Jay Underwood as Grover Dunn and Chynna Phillips as Cindy Moore (yes, that Chynna Phillips, from Wilson Phillips). I do not own the movie or the characters. Spoilers: everything in the movie, as this takes place weeks after the movie finale.