Chương 19: Tools of the Trade

During the van ride Sam sat in the back with Alex, Terry drove, and Drew sat in the passenger's seat.

"Okay Alex, you said you were a fan of the show, right?" Sam asked. "So, you must be aware at least about our equipment."

Alex was concerned, she only pretended to have watched their show, as it was vital to her mission that they trusted her. "It's a long ride, why don't you go over them for me anyway." Alex said. "Seeing them on television is one thing but holding them in your hand is a completely different experience."

"Alright, fair point." Sam said. She had already lined their main tools up along the side of the van. She grabbed her first one. "This is what is called a spirit box, it makes a lot of static noises and scans radio frequencies to try to enable the apparition an ability to communicate. You see it has a screen here, when you ask a ghost a question, a word can appear here, and then it will say the word in a robotic voice. This tool is one of the viewer's favorites."

"That's so neat!" Alex said as she clapped her hands together. "What else do you have?"

Sam picked up her next item. "This is a small remote night vision camera, we set these babies up throughout the area, to try and capture footage when we are not there. Could be anything from strange noises, most of the time its knocks or something like that. Balls of light have been known to appear, but they are kind of a pain because we always have to debunk the possibility it may have been an insect."

"How do you do that?" Alex asked.

"Well insects fly in a distinct pattern, but ghostly lights tend to float and ignore the laws of aerodynamics." Sam said. "So, any questions so far?"

"None!" Alex said.

"Okay moving on then," Sam said. "This is just a blank book. The hope is that ghosts or spirits or whatever will put their mark on it." Sam pulled out the book from the ranch. "See how the last thing we encountered burned words onto the page, that is the strongest reaction we had ever seen."

"Wow!" Alex said. "What a creepy message too!"

"That whole case was a nightmare," Sam said. "Be glad you weren't there for it."

"What else do you have?" Alex asked.

"Oh well the FLIR Thermal camera is always nice." Sam said as she picked it up. "See, look through it." Sam handed it to Alex. "See how I am a bright orange person." Sam waved.

"Yeah!" Alex said.

"This maps visible heat, so it should detect any cold spots generated by the paranormal." Sam said.

"Wow!" Alex was impressed. "How many more tools are there?!"

"Just a few," Sam explained, "this one for example sets up a constant grid of light. If something breaks the grid, we get an alert. Sometimes ghosts appear as shadows, and when a shadow crosses the grid, well that's evidence."

"So, what kind of stuff have you caught?" Alex asked.

"I thought you were a giant fan of the show?!" Sam asked.

"I meant besides what you showed on television!" Alex said. "There has to be things too horrible for tv right?"

"No, we just edited out the bad, but all our cases are on the show." Sam laughed.

"So, you said your last case was really bad?!" Alex asked, sensing this was her chance for intel.

"Yeah, that one was especially violent, almost killed us." Sam said. "But luckily we were able to get out of there alive."

"Would you mind telling me about it." Alex asked. "I really want to know what happened! You got me all curious!"

"You really don't want to know!" Drew shouted back. "That case was the stuff of nightmares, I am still having them."

"You had another nightmare Drew?" Sam asked.

"Yeah, it was like I was in another world, everything was dark and decaying, it was horrifying.�� Drew explained. "But I yelled and snapped out of it, terrified my neighbor in the process."

"Don't worry Drew, I am sure they will stop eventually." Sam said.

"Let's hope." Drew said.

"So, can you tell me?" Alex went back to her question. "I still want to know."

"No, Drew's right." Sam said. "Somethings you just shouldn't know, and what happened that night is one of them."

"Alright." Alex sighed. She was frustrated they did not tell her, but she did not want to push too hard and break her cover.

"Oh, read this." Sam handed Alex a tablet. "It's a copy of everything we know about every type of spook out there. This knowledge will help you survive out there and until you have read and understand all of it, I am afraid you are on van duty."

"Van duty?" Alex asked.

"Yeah, you will stay in the van and monitor the screens." Sam explained. "We each wear one of those mini night vision cameras, so you will be able to see what we see. Aside from that you will also be able to view any of the remote cameras we set up. The FLIR also sends its data to the van's terminal. You will be our eyes and ears, seeing and hearing what we cannot. It is a super important job, which truthfully I don't want to give to a rookie, but our hunts are extremely dangerous, and I cannot have you getting yourself killed."

"I understand!" Alex said. She opened the tablet and began to study it.

Hours passed and they arrived at their destination. An old, abandoned hospital from the 1800s. The place was in disrepair, as if no one had done any maintenance in quite some time. Everyone got out of the van and Drew started taking photos of the site.

"What's he doing?" Alex asked.

"Well, we like to keep a photo journal of everywhere we go, depending on how dangerous the place turns out to be we may or may not share it with our fans." Sam explained. "Can't have amateur ghost hunters going to dangerous places, someone could get hurt."

"I see." Alex said.

"You just sit here in the van and we will set everything up." Drew said. "I hope you're ready for your first adventure!"

"I am!" Alex cheered. As Drew and the others left her to set up the equipment and map out the area, Alex picked her phone up and texted her superiors. [No usable intel yet. Will continue to probe for information. Sending you a data file of all their collected knowledge when I get back home.]